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History or TOE
Company

I8I0-1910

ONE HUNDRED YEARS
OF SERVICE

BEING THE

HISTORY OF THE

HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE

COMPANY

COMPILED BY

CHARLES W. BURPEE

HARTFORD, CONN.
I 9 I O

mrrtiD e Lrv(uj«»TOra i

ONE CENTURY'S TRANSITIONS

TODAY fire insurance has been awarded its place as one
of the most important features of industrial and com-
mercial life. To get the fascinating story of its develop-
ment, it is well to take the career of the Hartford Fire Insurance
Company which has its centennial this year of 1910. It is well
because the company dates almost from the inception of stock fire
insurance in this country; because, in its century of service, dis-
charging every obligation, it has developed $15,000 in cash into
assets of over $23,000,000, with capital of $2,000,000 and net
premium income of $14,989,010; because, in hours when men's
senses were benumbed, it has stood firmly between the nation and
disaster, and thus has stood, like the stolid general in battle, not
to win applause but because it was its bounden duty — what it
was there for.

Conscious, each one of us, that fire insurance is the safeguard
and promoter of prosperity, think back to the days when men knew
not of it. If a few banded together to share each other's losses,
it was chiefly in that self-denying crusader spirit which brought
our ancestors to these shores and which united them against all
their foes. Verily that spirit of striving to ameliorate conditions
has had its reward in America in the blessings of free government,
yet perhaps in no way more remarkably, here or elsewhere, than
in making protection against loss by fire a boon to both the insurer
and the insured. There have been days when the loss to the
insurers was greater than the losses to the individuals insured—
their destruction, — and still nowhere in our story will it be repre-
sented that insurance is other than a boon to the insurer if he has
followed the guide of industry, fidelity and experience.

During the hundred years we have had the New York fires,
the Chicago fire, the Boston fire, the Jacksonville and Baltimore
fires and the San Francisco horror; thousands of us ourselves or
our friends have had losses all the way from a burned rug to a great
establishment in ashes; and we ourselves have been reimbursed

[3]

so quickly, the whole world has been enabled to recover so speedily
from the tremendous shock in the obliteration of millions upon
millions of capital, that the once inconceivable is the accepted fact
today. Indeed, the danger now may be that we are becoming
too blase, that we accept one fact and hurry on for the next, not
pausing to heed the tremendous forces that have been at work,
to look into the lives and methods of men who have done this thing
for us, to measure their zeal and to learn from their heroism.

Yesterday's marvel is today's matter-of-course. The impossible
becomes the common-place. Of all the pleasures life affords, none
is greater than analysis of this swift transition. Yet so swift is it
and so absorbed are we in the persistent and strenuous present that
we scarcely take time to make the analysis. We applaud present
achievement like this of the Hartford, but the story of the past
must be terse as well as interesting if it is to command our attention.

It is the purpose of these pages, then, to present tersely, and
with human-interest high-lights, atmosphere of the times and true
stage-setting, the incidents and experiences which made the achieve-
ment possible. Hartford is the home of the Hartford Fire by
virtue of its birth, Connecticut its state, and yet it belongs to the
whole nation. Out of the mass of material at hand, that must
be chosen which shall be as interesting to readers in Illinois and
Chicago, in Georgia and Atlanta and in California and San Fran-
cisco as to readers in Connecticut and Hartford.

Special gratitude to the founders we must express for their
foresight in the matter of their records. That they were laying
mightier foundations than they knew is self-evident; that they
believed that a hundred years later there would be hosts of people —
more than then they could have dreamed of * — keenly interested
in the formal doings at their meetings is not at all probable. And
yet, as though directed by Providence, they chose for their records
a good-sized book which contains not only the minutes of their
meetings, both stockholders and directors, but also the minutes
of the meetings of the stockholders succeeding them, continuously
on down to the present day. Despite the fact that much of the
space in the old time was taken up with the resolutions appointing
individual agents or surveyors hither and yon, there is still room
in the book for the minutes of meetings for many years to come.

* Daniel Wadsworth said in 1820 that he actually believed that by 1900 Hartford would have a
population of 40,000. It was getting close on toward 100,000 at the dawn of the new century.

[4]

It is a leather-bound book, its corners well worn. With tender
care its back was replaced some years ago with a plain black leather
strip on which one still reads the ordinary writing-paper label —
"Records of Annual
Meetings from
1810— "

The interior is of linen paper that is almost proof against the
yellowing finger of Father Time. The ink likewise was made from
that precious old formula which rendered it practically permanent,
and as to the handwriting of Secretary Walter Mitchell, President
Nathaniel Terry and their successors, even unto the present most
remote generation, it was and is remarkably legible. Surviving
its early knock-about days, it found resting place at last in those
secure vaults of the present massive building of the company where
it is as safe as — rather safer than — the contents of the tombs of
Egypt. One might say that it is enshrined, such is the reverence
for it in the home office. Other relics also are stored in the vaults
or framed on the walls, but this is the chief of relics, and like the
company whose life it records from century to century, its useful-
ness is constant, while no man can measure how valuable it
shall be through the future, not for the company alone but for those
who shall seek the autograph record of the business customs of
the times, the history of the company and thereby the story of how
seeming miracles have been worked.

Could America have been what she is today but for deeds like
those here recorded in terse "votes" of stockholders and directors,
always ready to meet demands upon them .? Could New York's
confidence have been placed upon absolutely unshakable foundation
in 1835, with all that that has meant to the metropolis and the
world ? Could Chicago so soon have rallied from its terrible blow
and the development of the great West have proceeded as it has .''
Could Boston today be almost forgetting that morning when it
abandoned all hope .? Could Baltimore point with such pride to
its magnificent buildings so soon after there had been but smoldering
ruins on their sites ? Could the world's Eighth Wonder, the resur-
rection of San Francisco, have been undertaken, not to say accom-
plished thus promptly, without the aid like that so freely rendered
by the "Old Hartford" as shown in these pages.''

And this is but a brief review. Where, without fire insurance,
there might have been pathless Carthages in America today, there

[5]

now are cities handsomer than ever. This old book, in fewest
words, records the raising and expenditure of millions — to keep
faith and to ward off ruin from thousands of those whom fire had
despoiled. Who shall say it is not worthy to hold place among
the foremost in the archives of the country .''

II

THE GERM

WHILE the stone and brick and steel of the company's
home office are protecting the records of its pledges to
repair that fearful havoc which flames can work at any time
and anywhere, they also preserve relics and documents invaluable
to him who would know all the whys and wherefores of America's
tremendous prosperity and bouyancy.

The debt owed to a company which refuses through a century
to be shaken is not represented alone by the amount of dollars it
has paid for re-establishing commerce and industry and homes;
it is a debt w^hich cannot be measured, for it embraces that sense
of security without which commerce must hesitate, industry be
timorous and homes be a source of wearing anxiety. Hence our
eagerness to seize upon all evidence of how these Hartford people
were led into the paths which have brought us to such blessedness.

Foremost among the relics is policy "No. 2," February 8, 1794,
for 800 pounds, to William Imlay, Esquire, of Hartford, issued
by Sanford & Wadsworth "for the Hartford Fire Insurance Com-
pany." It is almost as clear as the day it was written and it brings
down to us just the information we desire as to how the business
was done then — incidentally, also, bearing silent tribute to men's faith
in each other in those days of close personal intercourse. Probably
it is the oldest fire insurance policy extant in the United States.

But before submitting it for reading in full, it should be said
that the Hartford Fire lays no claim to it because of the presence
of its name at the bottom of it. One hundred years from 1810 is
a long record and one that will lengthen with the regular travel
of the earth in its orbit. There is no need nor yet intention to
unduly lengthen it at the other end. By the date of its charter
it is the oldest company in Hartford, "the home of insurance,"
and by the total of its premiums it is the largest company in the
United States; but it was not in existence, other than in embryo,
in the eighteenth century and it did not insure the house ot this
distinguished Connecticut citizen, William Imlay, Esquire.

[7]

Nevertheless we have here a germ, and as such it should receive
close scrutiny. The subject matter, not the personnel, demands
first attention. It was for Mr. Imlay "or whom else it may con-
cern, wholly or partly, Friend or Foe," and that surely includes
all of us.

J^'l

\;ii^IEREAS

CTVbomclieitinijeoaKrQ, vTioHf orpmlf, rrioidorPocdoibmiieAirunnce O'^'*-

Aij /fc^-^x-^c

■ninll Fire, ud iIIDuifaiof FTr; TnrrMTrr ajraiiH ad Damafc vhich on Account of Fire may bippcQ,
cfibei bj Tcnpdt, Fuc, Wiad, o«n Fire, Nt^ligcQu lad f auir of vtn Scrvioci, or of tldglitraun, «bnticr
tbofeneardlor funbeftnffi ail estcmal AcdJoiri tnd AC^rrun^ ; tbooght of and Dot thought of, mwbu
Mukoafoctb ihe dimiEC bj Fire Bu^ih*ppo) v^^ />tif ^i^-et^ ^•£:H€,''^^^t'^ <;*'»w-r'»«*'«'«'*^L

^2i^^^^»Ct*^ 4^^.^r/^t»'/Tk^i&^^^:^i^i^ ^.^^'^^^T^CHiaini rpetullj and TOlor.tarnj itie

^ ^ O^^^^ ..^.4f.^saC^<=^

^;?4-/<'4V*-fi- CS^^ -

iLxid tbeAffur^', or »lioni kmafcoBeeni.ia afc of Dimige, or Hurt. I>i»ll n«Jto kI-c noPrcof r.or At-
mmioftlicValac) Ijuiihc produdnf ihli Policy (bJl fnflite. Ami in life it fcould happen thit ihe &id

OT tLat Aeeounr, tie do hereby pTOnjfepurifhiillr tDpiyand rjrify, cliliintlic fpice of three Monihiiiier the
Fire OiiU hiTC b3pp«oeil,dae Noucr hjviog hren jtien loui, snQ do Dtduflion tobe nude from the SumnTum'.
Cicci'I Tvo and »Q Ii»lf(KrCfn/, provided f*i J Lofi amounii [onic/ir Cnt(, under which no LofsoiDatnig*
vill be pi-'d. And in cite pf a piniul Ijiti, aU thai Ihillbc foiind lo belivedindprcfiined.lhjlltededufttil,
mfteriliLlMduQJcDsfitie ChugtipaiJ forilit ravinKandpreTerTing; and cooceroinE which the Afiuredlhjill be
bcUcied on hb Oaa^ n-iihoui Pur »iltdgLrg i«i tlung a^ainft it. And Jo we the Alluren »re conlcoted.and
bind OurftlTet and Coadj prrfcnt and to come, rincunciOE all Cavilj and Eiccplioni contrary to ihefe Pr^
*- ' ' ' ptcDU.'ei, tbe ConLdcntioa ijuc unlo ut for ttii> iiUTunoce b;^ the A(-

li«ve fidf Potter to jdj'ull the tme'i but b cafe tliey onnoi agree, ittm futhRroPertjw OuU tnoofeaTlur-,
uidaoT Tvo of them agreeing, flull be obligaiorj to both Partiet.

11^ ir!X£ESS WHEREOF, We lie AffM-'crs hice futrcribcd oin Nimea end Sunu iffmul ia

, jP" p,^ ^f ^^^^kJcA^t"^ O" llaufand Seven Hundred >cd

i^^^t.^^t-aC-f'

*' Dangers of fire" are included; likewise tempest, fire or wind
which may come from his own fire through fault of himself, his
servants or his most remote neighbors (and they might be pretty
remote in those days) ; and unthought-of possibilities are allowed
for, all through the period of one year and at a rate of one half per
cent.

[8]

HOME OFFICE, 1859 1870

Mark that the Insured need render no proof nor yet submit
facts to estabhsh the value of the building insured; he merely is
to present the policy and receive his damages. By this we are
beginning to get the "atmosphere" we want for the early stages
of our story. To be sure, the "company" claimed a leeway of
three months in paying and obligated itself to pay no loss which
did not exceed 5 per cent of the full amount. Salvage should
be allowed and the expense of same, purely on the insured's affidavit,
the "company" never "alledging anything against it." So far
as the English language could do it, it was made a free, frank
instrument, with the makers "contented." Then, of course, after
all this, if there should be differences, there was provision for a
board of arbitration.

Before the personnel of the insurers under this contract can
be fully appreciated, insight must be had into the conditions and
circumstances of the times and we be enabled to see in what other
ways the character of these same men was revealing itself. And
as we look into the commercial situation, our attention is drawn
to the Hartford Bank inasmuch as it was the mainspring of local
financial and commercial affairs, was managed by men who were
the prime movers in insurance and, it should be added, was to bear
at least as close relationship as that of godfather to the insurance
company to be chartered in 18 10. The Hartford Bank (to become
later the present Hartford National Bank) was organized under
its charter June 18, 1792, with Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth,
Major John Caldwell, a leading West Indian merchant; John
Morgan, who had acquired his wealth in a similar manner but was
to lose most of it through the hardships of the War of 1 8 1 2 ; Timothy
Burr, a citizen of means and eminence, and Caleb Bull, of family
of wide influence in the community, as directors. These names
were to become prominent in insurance history. Colonel Wads-
worth declining the presidency. Major Caldwell was chosen, and
he held the office till 18 19, when he was succeeded by Joseph Trum-
bull and he in turn — to include another insurance name — by
David F. Robinson in 1839. The capital of the bank was increased
to $1,000,000 in 1807 and stock sold at a high premium.

At the time the bank was established, the country was only
just beginning to recover from the terrible drain of the Revolu-
tionary War. What with few facilities for intercourse and the
states a bit jealous or suspicious of each other, we were still a country

[ " ]

of communities, seeking to satisfy but few needs except those that
could be met by importations from neighboring islands and never
suspecting the tremendous strength of the ties which were to bind
communities and states and make the influence of an institution
like the Hartford felt throughout the land. There was a federation
but not much of a nation. The bank, then, represented the will
and the energy of Hartford men, a force which was to aid mightily
in welding the country's communities into a nation. The bank
was the outcome of a desire for better facilities and for greater
cohesion. The same desire was felt by the early insurance men,
and it is natural that the same names are found in the history of
the bank and the history of insurance. Groping was giving place
to formation.

Since earliest times, men have combined to alleviate the indi-
vidual conditions through loss of the breadwinner or through
destruction of property. But, as with the old-time guilds, such
combination implied close association, intimate knowledge of each
other. Such association and knowledge, outside of separate com-
munities, were unknown in America. However, certain of these
communities followed the natural trend of the human race, and
the dwellers therein strove to share each other's burdens. The
intense economy entailed by the Revolutionary War no doubt
strengthened the habits of thrift among the inhabitants and at the
same time increased their watchfulness over such property as they
possessed and which was rapidly increasing. The destruction
of this property was threatened chiefly by fire on land and by the
perils of the sea^against which danger, foresight and care were
only partially successful. These perils were first grappled with
by those whose fortunes had rested in ships' bottoms, probably
because they were foremost to realize how much was at stake — on
sea and then on land.

It is easy to perceive that the times were getting ripe for insurance
along systematic lines and, although full fruition was still more
than a decade away, there is added zest to the study of the men
who made the beginning, some of whom were to see their fondest
expectations exceeded.

1 12 ]

Ill

THE MEN AND THE MEANING

HARTFORD was producing sturdy men. As in the rest
of the seaboard states, the West Indian trade was the
source of many of the fortunes. The city, practically
the head of navigation in the Connecticut River, had a large foreign
commerce in those days; even at a somewhat later date it was
written of the town by "Peter Parley" that it "smelled of tobacco
and Jamiaica rum." Advertisements of leading merchants included
in the lists of "goods just arrived" about everything from Madeira
wine to china ware.

In Hartford, then, as at the beginning in London, the attention
of underwriters was given first to vessels and cargoes, and Sanford &
Wadsworth led the way in applying the principles to the insurance
of land property. Their Imlay policy was dated February 8,
1794; on the 1 0th of the following March they published a small
card in the Hartford Courant saying:

HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE-OFFICE

The subscribers have this day opened an office for
the purpose of insuring Houses, Houshold Furniture,
Goods, Wares, Merchandise etc against Fire.

Sanford & Wadsworth.
Hartford, 10 th March, 1794.

The men who constituted this "office" or association were chief
among those who had helped establish the Hartford Bank. They
were Colonel Wadsworth, Major John Caldwell and John Morgan,
men whose names inspired confidence. Sanford & Wadsworth
acted as their agents.

Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth was one of the country's most
eminent financiers. Son of the Rev Daniel Wadsworth, pastor
of the First Congregational Church of Christ (founded by Thomas

13

Hooker and the first of its denomination in the state), he was born
in Hartford July 12, 1743. By the time he was 30 years of age, he
had become a skillful sailing master and had established a promising
business in his native town. Offering his services to his country
in the Revolutionary War, his talents won him rapid promotion
till in 1778 he was commissary general and later held like rank in
the army of the French allies until the end of the war. Both Robert
Morris and Alexander Hamilton consulted with him freely, coming
here for that purpose as had Washington, Lafayette, Rochambeau
and other officers during the war. Ten years before he helped
found the Hartford Bank, the colonel had been one of the original
subscribers for the Bank of North America in Philadelphia, to the
extent of one hundred and four shares of par value of $400 a share.
By the desire of Alexander Hamilton, he was made president of
the Bank of New York in 1785 and he was a director in the first
United States Bank.

Connecticut he served in the Continental Congress, in the
Constitutional Convention and for three terms in the Federal
Congress. At home his affairs were greatly prospered, he was a
promoter of worthy enterprises and he gave abundantly of his advice
as of his wordly goods. For a time he held the exalted position of
judge of the county (superior) court. At his death, April 30, 1804,
his son Daniel inherited his vast wealth.

Major John Caldwell, whom also we have seen in the work of
organizing the Hartford Bank of which he was the first president,
was a ship builder and owner as well as a merchant. Twenty times
he was representative in the Connecticut General Assembly and
with Judge John Trumbull, the poet and author of "McFingal",
and John Morgan, as a commission of three, had charge ot the
erection of the beautiful statehouse in Hartford (now the City Hall),
designed by Bulfinch and begun in 1794, the year of the first formal
fire insurance.

The major was one of the commissioners for building the bridge
across the Connecticut River at Hartford in 1809 and helped to
establish in Hartford the first school in the United States for teaching
deaf mutes, the present American School at Hartford for the Deaf.
His title of major came to him as commander of the First Company,
Governor's Foot Guard, chartered in 1771 chiefly to do escort duty
for the governor; its membership always has included prominent
business and professional men and its list of commanders is one

[ 14]

of Hartford's honor rolls. Major Caldwell was the grandfather
of Colonel Samuel Colt of Hartford who invented the revolver.
His firm, John Caldwell & Co., suffered heavily hy the War of l8i2
and in 1818 he retired from active pursuits, dying May 20, 1838,
aged 83.

John Morgan was one of the most striking figures of his genera-
tion. He and Caldwell wore the kneebreeches, silver buckles and
ruffled shirt-fronts of colonial days to the last. In every way his
personality made itself felt, not always for his own peace of mind,
as when in e.xcited conversation he let slip the very words he had
used in their solemn and proper connection when reading the service
of a Sunday at Christ Episcopal Church. He was graduated at
Yale in 1772. The street leading to the Connecticut River bridge,
for which he also was a commissioner, bears his name. The largest
contributor tow^ard the fund for its construction, he was president
of the bridge company from 1809 till 1820. The fortune which he
had amassed in the foreign trade was mostly dissipated during the
trying times of the War of 18 12 and after. He lived to the good old
age of four score and nine, dying in New York September 19, 1842.

The Sanford of the agency was Peleg Sanford who was Colonel
Wadsworth's confidential clerk.

The Wadsworth was Daniel Wadsworth who inherited with
his wealth the distinction of being Hartford's first citizen. He
married the daughter of Jonathan Trumbull — Connecticut's Revo-
lutionary War governor and Washington's "Brother Jonathan" —
and the old Wadsworth home on Main street continued to be the
chief place for the entertainment of distinguished visitors to Hart-
ford. Where were the broad grounds of the family mansion now
stands the Wadsworth Atheneum, on a site given by him along
with a large cash subscription. It is one of the historical and
art centers of New England with the Morgan Memorial Art Gallery,
the Colt Memorial and the Hartford Public Library grouping
around it, the Watkinson Reference Library and the Connecticut
Historical Society within. Still rated high among the art treasures
there, are thirty paintings by celebrated artists which Daniel Wads-
worth bequeathed.

A visitor to Hartford wrote of him: "He is a strange youth.
With his pockets full of money he had rather, at any time, sit down
at home betwixt his two sisters, and by some new act of tenderness
call forth their affection toward him than be in the best and most

[ '5]

fashionable company, at the gaming table, or in any place where
he can spend his money in an honorable and polite way. 'Tis true
as it is strange; and furthermore he is warmly attached to the
principles of virtue and morality, and really is not ashamed of his
God." One sketch speaks of "the simple dress of Daniel Wads-
worth, whose big gunboat sleigh plowed the drifts, laden with food
for the poor and delicacies for the sick."

This Courant advertisement of March lo, 1794, surely was the
first public announcement hereabouts of business of this nature.
The demand for protection had been increasing. Some means
of satisfying the risk to both the insurer and the insured were much
to be desired. That is to say, this sentiment was general among
men of affairs who then as now realized the importance not only
of having capital at a given moment but of having an assurance
of the perpetuation of that capital; it was to require the greater
part of the century to convince men and women of smaller means
that insurance was fully as important for them, if not more so.
Doubtless few things that the financier Wadsworth ever did were
more popular than this associating with himself others, including
his only son, who could be absolutely relied upon as able to redeem
their pledges. People were willing to pay for this sense of security
and they welcomed the departure which granted insurance on
houses, goods, merchandise and the like, even though there was
not to be wider appreciation of it until some years later.

Note that the main part of the Imlay policy was printed, instead
of all being manuscript as had been the custom under the hap-
hazard system. The only handwriting was for the special designa-
tions, the rate, date and signature. "Proposals" and "hazards"
are somewhat limited and, as has been shown, the whole thing is
decidedly primitive. It is merely the crystallization in print of the
most approved written forms of those days, with a strong odor
of salt air about it. The fact of its being printed and being under-
written by a group of responsible citizens as a company marks the
first great transition.

Of the science of fire insurance as practiced today there is hardly
a glimmer in this policy. A business of the modern proportions
must have science as an ally — the science of classification and of
rate-making. Discrimination there must be with its consequent
beneficial influence upon building and management, all working
to the end of reducing the chances of destruction.

[ 16]

f

Every man properly insured knows that he will receive indemnity
for his loss. In order that diminution of the world's wealth may
be as little as possible every man should be brought to feel that
that must be done which can be done to prevent fire as well as to
extinguish it after it once is started. Regulations largely inspired
by fire insurance have worked wonderful changes in our methods
of building, in the appliances installed and even in arranging and
caring for the contents of the buildings. Not only are the policies
coming to embody the spirit of these regulations but the Hartford
Fire Insurance Company every year sends out thousands of printed
hints and rules of guidance to people eager to learn and to profit
by the company's exceptional opportunities for observing.

The lessons of insurance were not to be learned in a day. The
original association was to be modified after a year's existence and
later to pass away or remain dormant until the men who had com-
posed it or their associates or immediate successors should re-estab-
lish it as a legal corporation with perpetual charter and with the
same name as had been used in 1794.

It seems that one Elias Shipman — who also will appear on
the subscription list of 18 10 — had acquired a special fondness for
insurance. Having looked over the ground in New Haven, he
was convinced that there should be a branch office there, and to
that end he persuaded Wadsworth, Caldwell, Morgan and their
two agents to form a copartnership, with himself included. The
papers were drawn July 27, ijg^, with the declared intention of
"underwriting on vessels, stock, merchandise etc, by the firm
of the Hartford and New Haven Insurance Company." Caldwell
was made the particular representative in Hartford and Shipman
in New Haven. Perhaps because he felt confidence enough to
walk alone, Shipman left the firm in 1797 and set up an office of
his own in New Haven, eventually under the charter of the New
Haven Insurance Company (1798 to 1833) of which he was presi-
dent for twenty-six years.

Sanford went to New Haven and the firm of Sanford & Wads-
worth was dissolved in 1798. Sanford died in 1801. With the
partnership passed the association known as the "Hartford Fire
Insurance Company." Not into oblivion, however, was that happy
combination of words to go, since it soon was to be revived never
more to disappear till, as an agent of the company once put it,
"the great conflagration when, it is said, 'the heavens shall be rolled

[ •?]

together as a scroll and the elements melt with fervent heat.' Then,
and not until then, with her policies all cancelled, may she 'climb
the golden stairs' and open the first office in the New Jerusalem."

The way had been shown and the spirit of the old association
could not die. For a period it manifested itself chiefly in marine
underwritings with Ezekiel Williams, Jr., the central figure, well
supported by Caldwell and Morgan. There was no firm or company
name upon the insuring contracts but the individual names upon
such of them as have come down to us are suggestive of the recent
past and of the early future. The leading names are John Caldwell,
Michael Bull, Thomas Bull, Asa Hopkins, Daniel Hopkins, Richard
Alsop, Normand Knox, John Chenevard, Ezekiel Williams, Jr.,
Thomas Sanford, John Morgan, Hudson & Goodwin, William
Howe, Samuel Lawrence, Gleason & Cowles, Hooker & ChaflFee,
Spencer Whiting, Daniel Jones, John Knox and Samuel Alcott.
In 1803 Caldwell and one or two of the others organized a marine
company with the Hartford name which later was merged in the
Protection Fire Insurance Company (1825 to 1854). Most of the
names will stand out prominently in the story of the Hartford Fire
Insurance Company as it goes on.

1

[ >8

THE ORIGINAL AND PRESENT RECORD BOOK

IV
A MEMORABLE DAY, JUNE 27, 1810

A BEAUTIFUL June day, in a quaint little New England
village huddled on the banks of the Connecticut River,
was June 27, 1810, a red-letter day in the history of Ameri-
can progress. Hartford had a population of barely 6,000 and it
did not increase except by 900 in the next ten years. It had been
a rather self-contained little settlement ever since the Rev. Thomas
Hooker, in search of still greater religious freedom, broke away
from the Massachusetts Colony and in 1636, with his sick wife and
a few followers, made his way on foot through the wilderness to
this spot, got rid of the Dutch and the Indians and proceeded to
frame up the first written constitution the world ever saw.

To the north of the statehouse green, which was a little back
from the river, was one of the most imposing buildings of the town,
built as a residence by the wealthy John Morgan in 1794. Well
shaded by stately elms, it had become in 1810 a commodious and
inviting hostelry, dear to the hearts of travelers between New York
and Boston, the resort of the town's fashionable set, the meeting
place for business men and church men. Ransom's Inn.

In the assembly room were held fortnightly "assemblies"
through the winter, subscribed for by men whose names appeared
on the rolls of the church, the Legislature and Congress. They
were a godly but pleasure-loving people of means. The old books
show that their assemblies were attended not unfrequently by as
many as twenty-five couples and that they had wine, porter and
brandy.

On this June 27, there had been more than the usual stir and
activity about the inn. Everyone had known that there was to be
a meeting there, at 10 o'clock, of the subscribers to a bona fide
insurance company, the charter for which had been granted at the
May session of the General Assembly. The charter had been
debated long and carefully before it was submitted to the General
Assembly. Charters were not such unfamiliar things, but a charter
for a fire insurance company — that was another matter. How

[ 21 ]

much capital ought there to be and what kind of property ought
the company to hold ? Further and equally important, how should
the prescription read for handling fire insurance ? Few of the
rocks in the sea ahead of them had been marked, in America or in
any other country. The charter, as signed by Governor Treadwell,
read as follows :

AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE HARTFORD FIRE
INSURANCE CO.

PASSED AT A GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT,

HOLDEN AT NEW HAVEN, IN SAID STATE, ON THE SECOND THURSDAY OF
MAY, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND
EIGHT HUNDRED AND TEN:

1. Be IT ENACTED BY THE GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL, AND HoUSE OF

Representatives in General Court assembled. That the subscribers to
the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, their successors and assigns, shall be
and are hereby created and made a corporation and body politic, by the
name and tide of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, and by that
name shall be and are hereby made capable in law to have, purchase, receive,
possess, and enjoy, to them and their successors, lands, rents, tenements,
hereditaments, goods, chattels, and effects of whatever kind or quality.
Also, bank stock of any bank within the United States, and the same to sell,
grant, alien, and dispose of, and to sue and be sued, to plead and be im-
pleaded, defend and be defended, in all courts in this State and other places
whatsoever. Also, to have and use a common seal, the same to break and
renew at pleasure. Also, to ordain and put in execution such by-laws and
regulations as shall be deemed necessary and convenient for the well ordering
and governing said corporation, not being contrary to this charter, or the
laws of this State or of the United States. To do and execute all and singular
the matters and things which to them shall or may appertain: subject to
the rules, restrictions, and provisions hereinafter provided.

2. The capital stock of said company shall be one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, to be divided into shares of fifty dollars each, which shall
be paid in the following manner, viz. : five per centum shall be paid in
thirty days after the passing of this act, and five per centum more shall be
paid within sixty days after the passing of this act; and the remainder shall
be secured by mortgage on real estate, or by indorsed notes payable thirty
days after demanded by the president and directors; and all notes given
for the payment of the installment aforesaid, shall be payable to order, and
indorsed to the satisfaction of the president and directors.

3. That for the well ordering the affairs of said corporation, there
shall be nine directors chosen on the first Thursday of June annually (after

[22]

the first election), by the greatest number of votes given by the stockholders
of said company, at a general meeting. And those who shall be duly chosen
at any election shall be capable of serving as directors until the expiration
of the first Thursday of June next ensuing such election. And the directors,
at their first meeting after such election, shall choose one of their number
for a president.

4. The number of votes each stockholder shall be entitled to in the
choice of directors, or any other business respecting the interest or concerns
of said company, shall be equal to the number of shares he shall hold.

5. All stockholders shall be entitled to vote, by themselves, or their
agents duly appointed. None but stockholders shall be eligible as directors.
Public notice shall be given by order of the directors, twenty days previous
to holding an election or general meeting of the stockholders, in a newspaper
published in the city of Hartford, and in such other places as the directors
shall judge necessary.

6. In case of the death or resignation of a director, his place may be
filled by a new choice for the remainder of the year, provided a majority of
the directors judge it necessary. All elections for directors shall be by
ballot, and the nine persons who shall have at any election the greatest
number of votes shall be declared to be duly chosen.

7. The directors for the time being shall have power to appoint such
ofiRcers, secretaries, and servants, as they shall judge necessary; and shall
be capable of executing such other powers for the well ordering and governing
the affairs of the company as shall be deemed for the best interest of the
same. No director shall be entitled to any emolument, unless the same
shall be ordered by the stockholders at a general meeting.

8. Not less than three directors shall constitute a board for transacting
business of the company, of whom the president shall always be one, except
in case of sickness or necessary absence, in which case the directors present
shall supply his place by electing one of their number as president for the
occasion.

9. Said corporation shall keep their office in the city of Hartford, and
may make insurance on dwelling houses, or other buildings, on ships and
vessels of every description, while in port and on the stocks, also on goods,
chattels, wares and merchandise, and other personal estate, of every name,
nature, and description, and shall be liable to make good and pay to the
several persons who shall be insured by the said corporation for all losses
they may sustain by fire in their houses or other buildings, ships, or vessels,
goods, chattels, wares, merchandise, or other personal estate, as aforesaid, —
provided always, that no stockholder shall be liable for any loss or damage,
or be responsible in their person or property other than the property vested
in the capital and fund of the corporation.

10. The stock of said corporation shall be transferable according to

[ 23]

such rules as the directors shall institute, and every subscriber of any share
or shares in said stock who shall neglect to pay according to the installments
aforesaid, or secure the payment of the residue of said share or shares as
aforesaid, shall forfeit to the corporation such share or shares, and all pay-
ments made thereon, and all profits which may have arisen therefrom.

11. All notes or policies of insurance signed by the president, and
countersigned by the secretary, shall be binding and obligatory on said
corporation, according to the terms and tenor thereof; and all notes made
by any subscriber, for the payment of their installments, and all notes in
writing which shall be made and signed by any person or persons, his, her,
or their agent or servant, who is usually intrusted by him, her, or them,
said notes being given for the payment of money only, and made payable
to any person or persons, his, her, or their order, or to the bearer, and indorsed
over to the corporation, shall be assignable, or indorsable over in the same
manner as inland bills of exchange are or may be according to the custom
of merchants; and said corporation to which the same shall be indorsed
shall and ma}' maintain their action thereupon for the money promised in
said note against the person who, or whose agent as aforesaid, shall sign the
same, or any of the persons who shall indorse the same, in like manner as
in case of inland bills of exchange; and the directors may loan the money
of the company upon such security as they shall think fit, and may purchase
for the company any of the funded debt of the United States, or bank stock,
or dispose of the same at their discretion, and shall once in six months make
such dividend of the profits as they shall think proper.

12. The stockholders in a general meeting may hereafter, if they
judge expedient, enlarge the capital of said company to the sum of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

13. If it should happen for any cause whatsoever that the election of
directors should not take place in any year on the day herein for that pur-
pose mentioned, said corporation shall not for that reason be dissolved, but
such election may thereafter be held on such convenient day as may for that
purpose be fixed on by the directors, they causing such public notice thereof
to be given as hereinbefore required for an election on the days hereby
designated for that purpose.

14. In case any insured, named in any policy or contract of insurance
made by the said corporation hereby created, shall sell and conveyor assign
the subject insured, during the period of time for which it is insured, it shall
be lawful for such insured to assign and deliver to the purchaser such policy
or contract of insurance, and such assignee shall have all the benefit of such
policy or contract of insurance, and may bring and maintain a suit thereon
in his own name. Provided, that before any loss happens he shall obtain
the consent of the assurer to such assignment, and have the same indorsed
or annexed to the said policy or contract of insurance, executed and signed

[24]

as a new policy or contract ought to be, according to the rules hereafter to
be prescribed by said directors for that purpose, and not otherwise.

15. Daniel Wadsworth, Daniel Buck, and David Watkinson are
authorized to call a meeting of the stockholders, at such time and place as
they shall appoint; to notify the time and place of the first meeting. And
at such first meetings, the stockholders shall have power to choose directors
in the same manner as is provided for at their annual meeting, and the
directors so chosen shall hold their offices, with all the powers given to
directors by this act, until the first Thursday in June next ensuing said
election. Provided, that this act may at any time be altered, amended, or
revoked by the General Assembly.

General Assembly, May Session, 1810.

LYMAN LAW, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
JOHN TREADWELL, Gover„or.
Attest, THOMAS DAY, Secretary.

Thus the cash at the outset was to be but $15,000. The remainder
was to be secured by real estate mortgages and thirty-day notes
endorsed to the satisfaction of the president and directors and
payable to their order. This, which would seem so amazing today,
gives a good cue to the financial conditions and customs of the
period. Fortunes were built up by prudence and industry, not
by speculation as is so often the method attempted today. The
secured note of a man of affairs could well be accepted at the bank
for a loan to meet the insurance company's losses — as they were
sometimes offered and accepted. And only men of means were
subscribers to the company's stock, most of them intimate friends
and associated in other enterprises. To be sure, they calculated
that profits would make payment of the notes unnecessary, and
as to how their expectations were realized we shall see; but in any
event those notes were to be considered as good as gold.

The charter provisions for investments and for handling the
business were broad enough to constitute the best kind of foundation.
There have been but eight brief amendments all told to keep the
charter up to date as the business and the country developed. The
first was in June, 1853, increasing the capital to $300,000 — an
increase of only $50,000 from the maximum named in the charter —
and making each share $100 instead of $50. May 27, 1857, an
amendment was adopted to add to the capital within two years
2,000 shares of par value of $100 each; and, after the two years,

[25]

to go on adding to the capital until an aggregate of 5,000
such shares was reached — "which said additions to the cap-
ital shall be made from the surplus earnings of said company,
and shall be divided pro rata among the persons who may be
stockholders at the time or times when such additions shall be
made."

The third amendment was for an increase to 30,000 shares or
^3,000,000, the additions to be made when and as the directors
should deem proper, and stockholders should be entitled to pro
rata share. The date of that was June 8, 1865.

The fourth amendment, June 6, 1867, allowed fifteen directors
instead of nine. The fifth, July 3, 1869, struck out the words
"while in port" in Section g, inserted the words "or other securi-
ties" in Section 11, struck out the words "six months" and sub-
stituted "from time to time" — for declaring dividends. The
sixth amendment, in 1882, and the seventh, in 1895, had to do
with the date of annual meeting — the former fixing it for the month
of February and the latter for either January or February. The
one in 1882 also provided that vacancies on the board could be
filled by the board itself, the new directors serving till next annual

meetmg.

The eighth amendment, April 2, 1909, permits the company
to insure against damage or loss to all kinds of property by the
elements, including fire, lightning, tornado, wind and hailstorms;
also against marine disaster and the hazards of inland navigation
and transportation; also against leakage from sprinklers installed
to protect against fires; against loss or damage by explosions,
with or without fire — steam boiler explosions excepted; and
further to insure against damage to automobiles resulting
from fire or the hazards of transportation and marine naviga-
tion, from theft of any of their parts or equipment and from
collisions.

Imagine Nathaniel Terry and his friends having foreseen
automobiles or the possibility of indemnifying for loss by wind or
hail!

The amended charter itself tells the story of the company's
growth. A particular point of value is lost if we do not note that
this is a perpetual charter — not limited as are those of many other
companies. To this original document, the subscribers, with the
amounts of their subscriptions, were: —

[26]

Hudson & Goodwin, loo

David Daggett, loo

Shipman Denison & Co., ... 60

Nathan Smith, 20

Charles Denison, 20

Edward VVatkinson, 40

James B. Hosmer & Co., ... 20

Luther Savage & Co., .... 50

Harry Pratt, 10

Andrew Kingsbury, 20

Daniel Wadsworth, 80

Mehitable Wadsworth, .... 50

Jacob Sargeant, 20

Ebenezer Barnard, 50

John Russ, 40

Nathaniel Terry, too

Horace Burr, 10

Chauncey Goodrich 20

William H. Imlay, 25

Kimberly & Brace, 100

Henry Terry, 75

Ward & Bartholomew, ... 50

Ward Woodbridge, 50

Samuel Tudor, Jr., 25

Jonathan Brace, 50

Isaac Bull, 25

John Sargeant, 50

Thomas Glover, .... -5°

Roland Lee, 40

Henry Newberry, 20

Nehemiah Hubbard, Jr., ... 40

Joseph Hubbard, 2nd., .... 40

David Watkinson, 85

Jeremiah Brown, 40

Samuel Watkinson, 40

Abigail Hubbard, 40

John R. Watkinson 40

Walter Mitchell, 25

Enoch Perkins, 20

Daniel Buck & Co., 100

Caleb Pond, 10

Spencer Whiting, .... 30

William Moseley, 40

Nathaniel Patten, 100

James H. Wells, 40

James R. Woodbridge, ... 20

Frederick Wolcott, 40

John R. Landon, 20

Seth Terry, 10

Eliphalet Terry, Jr., .... 20

Caleb Moore, 10

George W. BoUes, 10

Lewis Strong, 43

Joseph Lyman, 44

Theodore Strong, 43

Isaac D. Bull & Co 25

Thomas Chester, 30

David Porter, 40

Joseph Perkins, 40

Peter Lanman, 60

John W. Holley, 25

Isaac Thompson, 50

Joseph Skinner, 50

Joseph Trumbull, 10

Philo Hillyer, lo

Peter W. Gallaudet, .... 10

Joseph Rogers, 10

Elisha Colt, 10

Normand Knox, 20

Michael Olcott, 10

Jonathan W. Edwards, ... 60

Moses Tryon, Jr., 50

Daniel Lombard, 20

Eli Ely, 10

Joseph Pratt, Jr., . . .10

Charles B. King, 10

Hitchcock & Wolcott, . . 15

Williams & Perkins, ... 20

Elisha Dodd, 10

Daniel Bunce, Jr., 10

Ephraim Root, 35

Dwell Morgan, 20

Samuel Ledlie, 10

[27]

It is a remarkable list, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, members
of families still prominent in Connecticut affairs — in the affairs
of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, some of them; not a
few of them known far beyond the borders of the state. Daniel
Wadsworth, Morgan, Whiting, Hudson & Goodwin, Shipman
and Knox form the strong connecting link with the original so-
called Hartford Fire Insurance Company. Others of the pioneers
were to take stock in the company later. Decidedly is it worth while
to dwell upon these names of the people who attested their faith
in fire insurance by forming a corporate body and by advancing
the capital with which to organize it and make it efficient.

Passing by the names with which we are familiar, including
that of Shipman for this was the Elias Shipman of the copartner-
ship of 1795, we come to that of James B. Hosmer. Mr. Hosmer
was renowned for his benevolence and endowed the Hartford
Theological Seminary, conspicuous in the religious history of the
nation, with ^100,000 and residuary interest in his estate. William
H. Imlay, dealer in hardware, was one of the town's leading mer-
chants and most public-spirited citizens. He was the son of William
Imlay, the holder of policy "No. 2" of the earlier Hartford Fire
Insurance Company (see page 8). Kimberly & Brace were a
large firm of grocers engaged in the West Indian traffic. Jonathan
Brace was one of the promoters of the Hartford Insurance Company
of 1803 which did a marine business. At various times he was
state's attorney, chief judge of the county court and representative
in Congress.

New Haven, Middletown and New London, sister ports, were
well represented, which fact is indicative of the close relationship
formed by community of commercial interests. Charles Denison,
partner of Shipman's in New Haven, became one of the presidents
of the New Haven Fire Insurance Company which was organized
in 1813 (and which was reinsured by the Hartford in 1822). The
Frederick Wolcott of Litchfield was one of the well known Wolcott
family and himself was clerk of the Litchfield county court.

Enoch Perkins, an eminent lawyer, was state's attorney. Ward
& Bartholomew, military goods, were among the town's most
enterprising merchants. Eliphalet Terry was to become one of
the greatest presidents of the company; he was a cousin of Nathaniel
Terry, the first president. Seth Terry was a lawyer.

Elisha Colt was for thirteen years comptroller of the state.

[28]

¥1 I . -^ I

.^ t

^^

li

III

K

The public offices held by Chauncey Goodrich during his lifetime
were those of supreme court judge, lieutenant governor, congress-
man and United States senator. Normand Knox, one of the earliest
underwriters, deserves further notice since he was cashier of the
Hartford Bank from 1799 to 18 14 and was secretary of the local
marine insurance company organized in 1803, bearing the
name of Hartford and merged in the Protection Fire Insurance
Company in 1825. In 1814 he became president of the new Phoenix
Bank. Meantime he conducted a leather store.

Jacob Sargeant was a prominent member of the bar and a large
property owner. The firm of E. Terry & Co. was engaged in
general merchandizing. Luther Savage & Co. dealt in flour and
feed. Imported dry-goods formed the main stock in trade of J. R.
Woodbridge & Co., Henry Newberry, Tudor & Hillyer (Samuel
Tudor and Philo Hillyer were the firm), Henry Pratt and John
Russ. Michael Bull imported the handsome cassimeres and
broadcloths the men wore and Isaac Bull had one of the largest
drug stores in Connecticut, in existence today under another name.
Joseph Trumbull, who put his name down for a modest ten shares,
was a grandson of Governor Jonathan Trumbull and was himself
to be governor and also congressman. For a time he was president
of the Hartford Bank.

It is worthy of note that some of this first issue of stock never
has been sold. That subscribed for by John Russ was passed on
to Charles J. Russ and by him to Charles T. Russ, Charles C. Russ
and Henry C. Russ; with the additions that have been made to
it, it is held today by the estate of Charles T. Russ and by Charles
C. and Henry C. Russ of Hartford. Part of the shares taken by
David Lombard were left to John Mills and Elsie Lombard in
trust for Julia L. Chaffee, the present owner, who is a resident of
Milwaukee, Wis.

Several of these subscribers were to become directors at later
periods.

The directors chosen at this first meeting were Major Nathaniel
Terry, Nathaniel Patten, David Watkinson, Daniel Buck, Thomas
Glover, Thomas K. Brace, James H. Wells, Ward Woodbridge and
Henry Hudson.

[3- ]

THE FIRST MANAGEMENT

CONSPICUOUS in this group of directors who tarried after
the others had left the inn was Major Terry, frequently
called general. With his six feet four, erect carriage and
rather imperious manner, he did look the ideal general. He was
the progenitor of one of the bravest generals of the Civil War and
of the Indian campaigns, Alfred H. Terry of New Haven. Henry
Baldwin writes thus of the gossip about the major: "The harmless
gossip was that he would fell a man to the earth without stopping
to think; but in his gentler moods he would stuff the pockets of
little vagabonds with the plums from his garden and when he walked
the streets he was encompassed about by a flock of children who
knew his sunny side."

The major had passed his forty-second birthday anniversary
on the January 20 preceding this occasion. We see him, then,
in the full prime and glory of his vigorous manhood, a natural
leader and a most persuasive debater. This very active force in
the life of the day was born in Enfield, of the same stock with several
others who did credit to their times. He was a son of Nathaniel
Terry, of ancient English family. After being graduated at Yale
College in 1786, he studied law but did not open an office in Hart-
ford until 1796. For twelve sessions he represented the town in
the General Assembly. He was judge of the county court from
1807 to 1809. In 18 1 7 he was sent to Congress where he served
until 1819. Meantime, in 1818, he was delegate to the convention
which produced the constitution that has been in force in Connecti-
cut ever since. From 1 8 19 to 1828 he was president of the Hartford
Bank. Elected mayor of the city in 1824, he was re-elected repeat-
edly, holding the office for seven years. His title of major came
from his position as commander of the First Company, Governor's
Foot Guard (1802-1813). The major's wife was Colonel Jere-
miah Wadsworth's daughter Catherine, whom he married in 1798.
He died in New Haven at the age of 76.

A shrewd, far-sighted business man is what one would have

[32]

called David Watkinson who was listening intently to every word
of Major Terry's but himself was saying little. He was nine
years the major's junior and was hardly more than beginning to
win his spurs in the commerce of the town. He had come in 1795
from England, where he was born, in Lavenham, County of Suf-
folk, January 17, 1777. After beginning as a merchant's clerk in
Middletown, Conn., and after a short experience in New York, he
had come to Hartford, and at the age of 23, with his brother William,
had opened a hardware mercantile house which was to yield him a
handsome fortune. In 1841 he retired from active business life.

A man of the highest Christian ideals, a member of the Center
Church, he gave freely but wisely and was prominent in all good
works. He subscribed $100,000 for the Wadsworth Atheneum,
previously referred to, and gave a residuary interest in his estate
for the Watkinson Reference Library established in connection
with the Connecticut Historical Society, with $5,000 for the enlarge-
ment of the building — one of the most practical bequests made
by any citizen of Hartford before or since. He also left a good
sum for the Hartford Hospital and abundant funds for establishing
the Watkinson Farm School in connection with the Orphan Asylum.

To a man of this sound business sense the outlook for the Hart-
ford Fire Insurance Company appealed strongly. His good works
live after him for Hartford in the library, the Atheneum, the hospital
and the school, and for the whole country in the Hartford Fire
Insurance Company which his wisdom helped establish.

Thomas Glover, James H. Wells, Nathaniel Patten and Henry
Hudson, all were men whose fine acumen was giving Hartford
high repute in the world of commerce which had been developing
since the dawn of the new century. They had seen the practical
value of underwriting and had been witnesses of its shortcomings
under the old system. They needed not the persuasive words of
Terry to make them appreciate the wisdom of the step that was
being taken on this June 27, 18 10; they were of one mind with
Terry and Watkinson and all the others.

Thomas Glover was a thrifty dry-goods merchant with a rapidly
increasing business at home and abroad. James H. Wells supplied
tools for Hartford and the countryside. He was making a specialty
of "patent glass paper" this summer of 1810. Nathaniel Patten,
of the Norwich family of Patten, had a printing establishment
and by prudent investments was acquiring a competency.

[33]

Henry Hudson was a son of Barzillai Hudson of the firm of
Hudson & Goodwin, publishers of the Courant. With his father
and brothers he had manufacturing interests. The Oakland Paper
Company of Oakland, Manchester, a few miles from Hartford,
is the successor to the Hudson Brothers' paper mill established
there in the '30's when Henry Hudson bought a saw mill and con-
verted it into a paper mill. Henry Hudson always held a high
place in the community and was mayor of Hartford from 1836 to
1840.

Ward Woodbridge was the wealthiest man in Hartford after
Daniel Wadsworth and William Imlay. He was one of a family
of prominent men. They were descended from the Rev. John
Woodbridge of Medbury, Mass., who came from England in 1634
and was ordained October 24, 1645. That was the earliest ordina-
tion in New England. The Rev. John Woodbridge's wife was a
daughter of Governor Dudley of Massachusetts. The present
vice president of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Richard
M. Bissell, is a grandson of Ward's brother, Deodatus Woodbridge.
Ward had a cotton factory in Munson, Mass., but his chief enter-
prise was his large dry-goods importing establishment on Main
street in Hartford. On relinquishing his business interests he had
acquired a large estate. After his retirement from active com-
mercial life he was prevailed upon to serve as president of the
Hartford Bank. He died October 31, 1856, at the ripe age of 86.

Daniel Buck was another scion of sturdy stock, his father a
large landowner and farmer in the nearby town of Wethersfield.
Mr. Buck, who was born October 27, 1779, was a merchant (D.
Buck & Co., general store) who went on the principle "Nothing
venture, nothing have," and with his brother, Dudley Buck, he
acquired the ownership of a line of steam vessels to New York City.
Mr. Buck died in Poquonock, Conn., January 19, i860.

Another among those who tarried at Ransom's Inn that morning
to complete the organization of the company was Thomas Kimberly
Brace of the wholesale grocery firm of Thomas K. Brace & Co.
His rather thin features, high forehead and firm mouth showed
him to be a keen, energetic man, withal one who was not lacking
in the courage of his convictions. Born October 16, 1779, he came
of a distinguished family and was graduated at Yale College in
1801. He was to become first president of the JEtnz, in 1819.
From 1840 to 1843 he was to be mayor of the city.

[3+]

One of the busiest of the group, who was staying after the stock-
holders' meeting not because he had been chosen a director but
because of his general interest and because as one of the legal lights
of the town his services might be called into requisition, was Walter
Mitchell. He had the front of a Daniel Webster, his long wavy
hair thrown back boldly from his high forehead. His sparkling
bright eyes had a suggestion of humor in them, and his rather con-
siderable bulk, perhaps, predisposed him to sedentary occupation.
His home was in Wethersfleld, but he had an office near Ransom's
Inn — just the other side of the Hartford Bank, near where the
Hartford Courant building now stands. His high-keyed voice
could be heard above the tones of the others as they came out into
the hallway, and once in a while a peculiarly merry laugh was
evidence that he was enjoying the day. Major Terry was the most
commanding presence, impressively dignified; Mitchell, the most
picturesque. Donald G. Mitchell of New Haven, the "Ik Marvel"
of the world of American letters, wrote thus when asked if he could
recall his uncle :

"Of my uncle Walter I can really tell you very little — save
that he was the fourth child of Chief [Justice] Stephen Mix Mitchell
[also United States Senator] and was born October yth, 1777. He
died in the year 1849. ^7 ^^^'^ recollection of him dates back to
the vacation days at my old school in Ellington, (somewhere about
1833,) when I used to come in to Hartford upon the 'Ware &
Keene' coach, and seek him in his office next the Hartford Bank,
and usually drive over with him to the old homestead in Wethersfield.
I remember him in those days as a bright-eyed, somewhat corpulent
man, with snow white hair — full of all good advices and breaking
out now and then into a laugh that was very musical and very
contagious. He never married — as you doubtless know; but
was cared for and reverenced during all the latter part of his
life by two devoted sisters — one of whom survived him many
years.

"I cannot remember ever encountering any testiness in him or
ill-humor, but he always seemed to me abounding in a cheeriness
that it was good to meet."

Major Nathaniel Terry was the one candidate for president
and he was elected promptly by the directors. Then Squire Mitchell
was appointed secretary. It was immediately

"Voted, That the money from the first instalment be deposited

[35]

in the Hartford Bank to the credit ot the 'Hartford Fire Insurance
Company' until further orders.*

" Voted, That when money of this company is drawn from the
bank, it shall be done by checks signed by the president and counter-
signed by the secretary.

"Voted, That meetings of the president and directors be held
in the office of Walter Mitchell in Hartford.

"Voted, That the secretary purchase such books and stationary
as may be necessarv' for the transaction of the business of the com-
pany."

So the office was to be in Walter Mitchell's somewhat bare and
dust)' rooms almost in the shadow of the statehouse and under
the eaves of the paternal Hartford Bank, a most fitting location.
The chief residences were practically within three modern city
blocks of the company's office. Between the office and the river
were most of the importing houses.

The expense of furnishing the first office was S21.25 according
to the following account which has been preserved :

1810 July 17 To a large table with drawers, . . . $8.00

To cloth, nails, locke, etc., 7-25

24 To removing and ( — r) up book case, .58

Octo. iQ To a book case, 6.00

21.83
■58

21.25

Rec'd. payment from Hartford Fire
Insurance Company and fifty-
eight cents,

.•\.^RON COLTON.

Squire JVIitchell evidently would not allow that 58 cents in the
name of the company.

The location thus easily decided, the first real problem was how
to invest the company's capital. WTiile opportunities were abun-
dant, it was felt strongly by these men that the money should go
where it would be safe not only for the present but through the
distant future into which they were dipping hopetully but with

* Since that date never has there been a time when there has not been a deposit with this bank
The company preserves among its relics its first bank book.

[36]

little to guide them outside of their own sound sense. We have
seen that several of the promoters were interested in the Hartford
Bank.

The decision of the directors is recorded in the minutes of their
second important meeting of November 14, 18 10, when they in-
structed President Terry and Nathaniel Patten, as a committee,
to obtain by subscription or purchase, at discretion, not exceeding
forty shares of the Hartford Bank stock, "pecuniary funds" to be
transferred to them for that purpose. Also it was voted to obtain
a loan from the bank of as much money as was needed for the
transaction.

Eighteen years of life, with wise and thrifty management, had
put the bank on a pretty solid basis. The stock was 400 par and
the premium was 4 per cent. The company had $15,000 in cash.
Forty shares would cost $16,640. It borrowed $1,224 or within
$426 of the amount required. After two weeks' consideration,
it was decided to go in for but fourteen shares for the present, which
were purchased for $5,824, and the balance was left in the treasury.
Seven years later the company owned one hundred shares which
had cost $43,684.25. The subsequent purchases have brought
the total up to 556 shares for which $63,962.75 has been paid. This
stock has yielded the company to date (1910) $386,350.03. The
directors chose their first investment well, and a glance at the lists
of securities ever since reveals that their successors have not been
behind them in wisdom.

Altogether there was more caution and conservatism at the
launching than we, with revised notions as to notes, might think.
Moreover, the faith that the profits would take care of the paper
was to prove warranted. The first year there were no losses
whatever. A possible reason for this immunity was that risks were
few. There was no solicitation of business, and of risks submitted
to the office only those were accepted — the whole board of directors
acting upon them — whose ownership and condition were known
to be of the best.

Supplementing the observations upon insurance in 1794, it is
well here to note more definitely what a comparatively new thing
under the sun fire insurance was. The world had been learning
slowly. Back in the dim ages, there sometimes were instances of
the government's compelling contributions to make good the losses
by fire, and there is in Germany today a survival of the idea of

[37]

government insurance, worked out and fairly well adapted to the
conditions there existing. Also there were communes and guilds
for insurance. The first known suggestion from private individuals
to form an association was made to Count Von Oldenberg in 1609.
Nothing much came of that. The burning of London proved more
efficacious than the burning of Constantinople. The year after
the great London fire, one Michael Barbon actually opened an
office in that city with a well formed plan of in4emnifying (or "damni-
fying") patrons who suffered from fire. Yet stock companies did
not appear in England, which was leading the way, until 17 10.

In America, as has been shown, insurance activity was confined
mostly to separate communities, and the efforts had not been suf-
ficiently successful and appreciated to warrant the embarking of
much capital in such ventures. The Philadelphia Contribution-
ship (mutual) was the first company to be organized (1752) and
the Assurance Company (mutual) (Philadelphia, 1784,) the second.
The Insurance Company of North America (Philadelphia, 1794,)
was the first stock company. By the beginning of the nineteenth
century a few other companies had sprung up here and there but
generally with charters limited, that is, expiring at the end of a
certain period. Every thing marks the general uncertainty. Nor
were conditions much better on the continent of Europe. The
first companies in New York were chartered to conduct fire, marine
and life insurance. Most of those in the first half of the nineteenth
century had special charters limiting them to marine insurance.

[38 ]

NATHANIEL TERRY

PRESIDENT
1810-1835

VI
FIRST PROPOSALS AND CONDITIONS

TN New England, with its foreign trade, at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, marine insurance was the more impor-
tant, as has been noted, and for its forms there were good
patterns in the mother country. In 1810 what fire insurance com-
panies existed were mostly of the neighborhood mutual kind. No-
where had a worthier, more dependable body of men taken hold
of the subject than in Hartford. By their perpetual charter as a
stock company they could insure ships while in port or on the stocks,
but it was insurance of property on land that they were to put first.
Notwithstanding lack of their own or others' experience as a guide
in certain important particulars, success would be theirs if they
applied the same principles of zeal and integrity which had been
theirs in their more familiar pursuits and professions.

Hartford was a city of culture and its citizens were of the worthi-
est type. F. C. Oviatt, late editor of the Philadelphia Intelligencer,
in a lecture in the insurance course at Yale, dwelt upon the person-
ality of Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, as an example, "so that" —
to quote his language — "the character of the men who engaged
in early Connecticut underwriting may be understood and the
reason why Hartford always held such a prominent position in the
underwriting world. It is because men of brains, means and faith
established the business."

The men of the Hartford had not reached the stage of employing
agents but they did know something of the merits of printers' ink
and, for this new thing under the sun, they resolved to use it and
use it liberally. They began with nearly one quarter of the whole
four-page Hartford Courant on August i of this first year, and
had like broadsides on September 5 and October 3. No such dis-
play ever had been seen before in the staid old paper. Here again
the Hartford Fire Insurance Company was way ahead of its times —
in the matter of attracting and educating the public. Then as now,
knowing the merits of its product, it desired that all the world should
know them.

[41 ]

As revealing to us how serious-minded men introduced the novel
subject to the pubHc, the advertisements are well worth preserving
in these pages. Indeed, if we pass by the long literary screeds,
the communications and the ship letters in the newspapers of that
period, we always can get valuable information from the advertise-
ments; local names and doings rarely are mentioned outside of
them — though be it said the names of the directors of the Hartford
Fire were published in italics when they were elected.

Headed by a cut of a burning building the advertisements pro-
claimed to the public as shown on opposite page.

Possibly there may be much in this reading to bring a smile to
the lips of the modern insurance expert, but as a document for that
period — for the same was embodied in the policies — it was most
remarkable. The classification of hazards to be sure is crude but
many of the clauses defining the liability of the company as well as
the method of procedure in event of loss have been tested by the
experience of a century and may be found in slightly altered form
in the policies which are being issued today.

The emblem, now so well known throughout the country, was
suggested by the name of Hartford — a noble old hart crossing a ford.
The full emblem has a shield on each side and partly concealed by
the circular representation of the hart and the ford. That to the
observer's right is the national shield, with the stars and stripes;
that to the left is the Connecticut shield with the three grape vines.
An oak garland is bound to the shields by the ribbon on which is
the motto, "Flammis Quae Correpta Ruunt Renovare Cona-
MUR," which, being freely rendered, means: "We undertake to
replace [or make good] that which has been destroyed by flames."
Above the hart and ford are the words in strong letters: "Incor-
porated 1810"; below the central representation: "Charter Per-
petual."

Thus was Squire Mitchell to open his doors to such as wished
to present applications for fire insurance under these conditions,
on August 6, 1810. The company's doors never have been closed
since then.

[42 ]

HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY.
PROPOSALS

FOR INSURING

HOUSES, BUILDINGS, STORES, SHIPS IN HARBOUR, AND ON THE

STOCKS, GOODS, WARES, AND MERCHANDIZE,

FROM LOSS OR DAMAGE BY FIRE.

The HARTFOnO FTBE insurance COMVANY h.-mg been iworporaicd by the LrBiiUnirc oflhc Sutt of ConnttiJcui with b opiial of One Hundred
tci rifiu Thousand DoUaii— "ilh a power of intirging ihc C.ipilal lo Two liunilrcd nntl Fifty Thouwnd JDollars ; and the Capilal pf One Hi'nd/rd "nd f 'ffy
T>oii»riDollarB being alrtidy paid and secured, lo be paid atcording to bw, (he Dirtciori n<Tw offn- (olhe public the following rtrm* upon whith iboy propow; 10
frioduct the bmUicss of lV Coiojiany

AlallctaMei of Clii£t;iis arc cupoMd to great clliffliiiri frT>in fire, we presume thai prudence will induce thrm to pay ilic small premium ttliich is required foi an
indemnity againii suJi nt^cidents. The pracnee of pror iinnij Iniurancc against tosses from fire, has abndy become very gcnerM through (his counliy, tnd »he
Company are cOnl^deDl iIul the extent and solidity of i>ieir Umdn, and the riirocu, liberality and ptuinpliiude with « hieh they sliall ailjuit tlic claim i> of sgflcrtr*, will
cnsuTT the confidcocc ^U'd patronage of this, and the ne.jl'rbounr^ Siatn.

",* No Insured Perso.i will l>c habic to maiie good tlic Losies of othen ; but in case of Fire, the Sufferer will be fully indemnified to the tmount inwrcd.— The
Company aLo njkc f.i»>J Lwi^cs on Ptoj-erly Ipui-hi by L^h'nlnc;.

CUASSESof HA2AHDS; ami JLlTES of ANNUAL PREMIDMS for IXSURAKCE apmii FJRE.

No. I.

Haiardi ijftAe Firii Our.
Brick or Stone Duitdings, corercd
Kith Stale, Titcs, or MeUL

Goods not biiardDUS contuned in

such Suiluing^

rJn

No. II.

5/" t/u Second Catt.

one Buildings, eortred

Goods not bszsrdout, ^onUined U

■Ucll i}>lllljlllgl.

Forn

No. m.

Hazard! of tilt T/HrdOait.

BuildinE*tHe sides of c tie hi re part of

Briik or SXoAt, and p4rt of Wood

Goods not hazardous, contained in
such buildings,

Haiardoua Goods, coMiined in But-
din^sor the Second CUsi.

11 net fxaedi'g

IO.O0O DolUrj in one Rick,
Jf^Ctinflrr 100 DoU«r, f.tr Jfrjni-
• S/3fu in Fori, er Itifir Ca'^i, SMpt RrflaiTing c
tit This manner of Classins Hsiards will elvea general idea of thcRsie^of Ji
■ c Bisk : iue»i

No. iV,

Jfazardi t^the Feuri/i' Clail,
Buildings. <hr sjdesof which are ef

lircly of Wood.

Hsurdoui Goods, contained 1ft Buil*
dm^oftbc ThirdClsu.

For ninn nai eictrding
10,000 Dollars in one Riik.

; may it Insurtdejt

but there will ntt^aiorily be onincreise of Ptei

10,000 Dollin in one Ritk,
lOOCV*. /IfT \QQDIU. jnrr^

L» joinine, or biinj eonUEUOo:
riremen lo the town or Place, i
ir dcuched, or ailendcd

b'ooden Duildinf^s, or Buildings
■The premiums (T»ya1to>-n
if pecoliar sccuriiy..—

cues where the lout situsiion, and other

occupied in csrrying on hsnrdous Buunei^-diiUnce fro'ii W

MineMses, be reduced on Wooden Buildings in (heeourir;, vhtn sisndinj single

Ltrger sums than t0,00o Dollars mi^ b& insured by sp;dai egreemenL

IE7* Soip Boitet^ Tallou Chjndlen, Brewers, Msliiieri, BaVen, Rope Makers, Sugar ReRncrs, Diidllcrs, Chnniits, Vsmish Makers, Stable
Keepers, Ta 'em Keepers, China, Glass, orF.afihenwarc SeUeii, Oil atii Colourmen, Turpentine Worki, Pjper Mjllsj Priming Housei, Cooptrs,
Carpentr-n, Cabiael Makers, Coach Mikcrl, Boat Duitders, Shio Ctmndlcrs, Apolhcc^rics, Theaires, Mills and Msctiinery, and all Mtnuficiaries that
use Fire Heal, are deeded estra haurdous, and muit be parilcubrly deicrilied.fi the Polity, snd for nil such Rijka an addi'.icnal Premium willberequicrd.

CONDITIONS OF INSURANCE.

t A LL Applications for Inturtnee

Xi. writing; and (he Subject ofTeftd Tor li

bp made at the office k^ the Comnanf, in
occuralely dewribed.
Diilriciof aSurireyorof this

U. If the property ofTCrcd fjr Ir
Company, he will cumlne and r^rt thereon; bul if not iiilbin any lucli Dittricl,
then the Applicant mmi himielf fijniiah an accurate and just dcicripuon thereof; t.i,
of what Milenals each Building it con'.lruciod ; whether occupied as Private Diwl-
lingi. or ho* OLhenrtse . where siluaied ; the Name ot the prcsuii Occupiers, how
Biuatcd with respect to ovhcr buildings : — And in the Insurance uf Goods. Wares and
Merehandiiclhe Place where the same are deposited, is to be described ; t|jii.wbeil>{r
such gt>ods are of the kind denominatbd Haurdou^, and whether >ny ManuTaciory ii
canicd on in the Premiur:., all which is lobe ceiiihed nnd atiestcil m sucli mannerss
Iheniiarcofthecase mtjf admit. And if any Person or Persona ihaJlinsurt hii or
their Dujtdingsor Coodi. and shall cause them 10 be dcicnbed in the Poticy oiherwise
tban they really are, so as the same be charged at a lower Premium than ia herein pro-
posed ; or ifiueh Oescnpiion be false or fraudulent, such Iniurmce vail be void and
«f BO efltcl.

Ill- CfiodslicM in Tn)st,oron Commiisiorv. are to be declared ftssu^i, otlierwiie
Ac PoKcy win not extend to cover such Properly.

IV. E«ery Policy onniurance, madcby ihiiCompany, shall be sealed wilbitsScal. and
signed by the Preiklcm and Sccre'ary ; "id the person lor whoic iniercy the Injuranee
tJ made, must be declared and named thcreio j nor can any Policy, ur Interest therein,
be assigned, but by consent of the Company, expressed by Endotumeoi made ihereun.

V- No Insurance will be conudered as made or binding, until ihc Premium is paid.

VL Persons insuring Property wiib this Company, and who have already made oth-
er Innrvice on the same Property, shall gi»e noiicc thereof in "■ruing at the Com-
ponj's Office, bcrore, or Bl Ihc time of Ihe execution of the Polky . and Persons who,
dker iDurmg Properly ivith this Company, have insurance made on the same
Proprrtyelsewhere, shall, wirb all reasonable Diligence, notify ihc tame in "writing al
t.'refllT.ceoflbe Company, and hsve the same endorrtdofithe Policy, or olherwise ac-
k'W»lcdgt>d in willing; in default whereof, ihe Policy shill ceaie, and be of no et-
L'cl: and in ovof Ll>%;. each Party injuring ih.ill be bibte to ihc Payment of a
RsleiMc Proportiin onl. <if iht Lou or Dimage whjrh may be suslaincd

VII. No Lessor Damage by Fire will be paid, IhnI may happen or lake place Ineon-
tequenceof any Earthquake, Invasion, Ciril Commotion, Riot, or Military or Usurped

VIII. Booksof Accounts. Written Securities, Notes, Bills, B^nds, Deeds, Ready
Money, or Bullion, cannot be insured.

IX. Jewell, Plate, Medals, or otberCurioiiics, Paintings and seulptores,are not in-
cluded in any Insurance, unltis luih Ai-ticlcs arc specified in ihe Policy,

\. All Persons insured by this company, susiiiiung any Lost or Damage by Fire,
are foithuiihlo gire Notice to the company, and Bi soon Is possible, 10 deliver in aa
particular an account of their Lois or Damii^, signed »ith' their own Hanits, ns the
Nature oflhe Case will admit, and make Pioofof the same by their Onli or AfTir>
malion, and by their Books of Accoumi, and other proper Vouchers, as >hall be reason-
abli rttjuired ; si>d shall make Oath, whelher any and what other Iniurance is made
ciithe lamc Properly ; and shall procure aCeniflcale, under ihc Hand of a Magistrate,
Nuii'y Public, orClergyman,mustcomiguoui to the Spot where the Fire happened,
and not concerned in such l.ou,) that they are actjuiinlcd with the Character and Cir-
cufr!innceiofihe Person or Persons iiiiurcd ; and do know, orverity believe, that he,
she.ur ihci,r(all^,andby Mislortune.andwiihout Fraudorevil Pcacuce, hove sus-
tained by luch Fire. Lois and Damage to the Amuunt therein mentioned ; and, unljl
tnch Affidants and Cenificates are produced, the Loss shall not be payible a^AIso, if
there appenri any Fraud, or false Swearing, (he Claimabt shall forfeit his Claim to
Restitution or Payment, by Vinae of h>s Policy.

XI. In ease any DiHeience shall arise, touching any Loss or Damage, 11 may be sub-
mitted to the Judgment of Arbilraiom, indifferemly ckoseni whose Award in writing
ahall be binding on the Paoicj. And w>en any Loss or Damige shall happen, the
Company shall p^ for the same in Siiiy Days after the Loss shall have ben atur-
lamed and proved, without allawanc st Discount, Fen. or any Deduction whsleier

XII. Inmraoeeroay be made for le/en Yeafi,_by piymg the Premium for Si<
Yearsi and for a Icsi num bet of Years than Se ten, a leaianable Discount vrill bealloMcd.

Hartford. July tJ, 1 1 10

N. B. The company will commence businesi on th<»i>th day «f August oeM.

MILITARY GOODS
tVAllD W BARTHOLOMEiy.

TJAVE ntriied (fv- top^i;, «h.e*i tDeci*- „
•nrtl^rounble tfrmi.— AL' O,

A mrtf supply tif Sif uhcn's celc- Oa
fcfiieJ DRUMS. ti

AagKitai im

STRAW BONNETS.
ELinU FAXON.

or ii!; 1 new aiipply "f SiriTi Bonnet) tod

STRAW BRAID.

uid. pf..

, Filling. ■

stra* mare.

STRAV;:!! from Ihe .i.t>icr>t*r, na the I5ih OTRATSt) l>™i
luLtbty MARK, h^e yaart oM. i.aiural O ?0>h ot ht.y U.I
iraner, hl*t« Aaneanil tail, uith a -hile Flnak in her brcheid. o~
inhet fnrehfid, inil ■ vh'ie ipolioii hrr n(*l icira old, ahoj ulii,
aida. WUorterttilli-iiemrorniaiibawhtrealie .iu. 1 uhH.,,^1,.
CIO b* found, thai) be leueuably rewarded and 1

CHARLKSJENCKSiCo,

REfOKC witi ih* PariMia. tku Hark.
btn abloia tKur.!

neiea vill [.roliakly b« aftrr iKtt t.
Hr*. wiU^ ivc..,..!

irint.

lirimn Stout, Spa
gan, (Jc.

nuh St.

Oh.".

.«0« r.srtrtMl.r-MaAiu'

w-**r

fon W.«.

^dOh

ShfrrTd».ln,,«n.r

Comae and Spaauh Brandy.

3U1 JtmuaiSpiniiandilL Cf«la Rum.

andtk.

■>■'«» Mjfwft. Mfson Skji. So-uAaf

lrownSlaal1nCaakaafei.3daa.MLk.

,00,0oaf,r.iqv.1..y Spuilah tagan.

to wLiAr,

.Hi/ and tuiBpSurar.

:<,(r.» io

Daei and narr«li.

tica in >

XnUucl

JiJMmco..d9Su»»r»

T<«eiber wuh ■ (wtral aaaerunet
CEKle&— Fertile by

loTCnO.

SHERMAN % MAftSHAtL.

BurringSbfi. WoB-Vo-k, Aor 1. rt

N. D

til otdirr fruin 1^ Cbimtry

.ui^ilyat-

C^m*i

...ll.l,v»

SPINNING WHKELS

Dotiatil M'Aufoy. — lomiT.

MKV.ZS •ndrTp..,r« ttl kindi rtf ir-\i-l
WhreUi li><t„>i>te:i b.nlrrid, n:
•• lYit 5hD> net! di-gr Is Mcil lluiiel Duac>

Four

Hal/.BiviMJfd JtUm,

Hiimt,

r.t;eli/ JOH^

to". Auiruii I.I.

TS

WAX- WORK.
ELEA7.EH HUyT!XG7(m,

HAVING bem ioiimcied in tt,c on. of Wac
Work. Id the to^iliem Stalei. by a gedi^
man Iroa Curopc— ofTen for lalc a im eaies of
h.s WDib -. conilaling of •ar;aa> hin.U t.( fruis.
with thcr r^li'ie, comptelely rucnibliDc iIh
Kbiural ( which \%t prtiyinca la say. lar-jud la
ao) Uiat haiheen imporleJ. The abo.e wci*

rally eomidereJ tiflitriar to eaintian. isd la
n.«h reigtitafterinaamo Of^ho man capi- J

dueed.^7he few caiei ^rhiah I, etui oahuiJ,
niybctetn a- Spcnurr » Cilnan-. Lnoli.p.
;iui Stcre. In Miin.Slrrel i wkere ladica uvd
[cntlemen are iiMited lo etll aru^ne* <bcm at
heirpleuun. — iru>y perien ihoaid vlab (or a
ue nf • cre»ler yarmlj- th«n th«e on banj,
>.ry may b« iu|i[>l.ed ai ivn u time will pcf-
D<1, with a caii of any deiCTip'.lon, by applyinj

IVORVandCAXWOOD.
<nnO toe SALS.,

I and 19 Taai Canvaod nr
xeiD'WaLr.inBnilal, R, f . . vho w>I(
r laid arliiUa in HiiUVird, if ihe purctia.

WcihEtiflcU, Ja:/ H

AKWOODHOWSE,

:1 .(atli.f M«v COLT. What.,,
aaid Worxt, ai 5I10 :ntjTi,„iw
nay he ^d. ihnU lot |t*cfT>vi)r rv
MULl/Ft- OtnCHCR

NORMAND SMITH,

IN punuuKC of hit avm, but boi f;rgt«lnf
the intcreitortbr (and people, wmild Inform
liie™ that he can and will lupp^ all ibair wanla
inhiiline. greatly ta She advinujo of thoaa
whowiih lopurthueiho follouiinf articles—
"■ ' " ' imli of Miliiiry and wlifr uaeful
"- " ' ipud Skin Hounngv,
...... ~,.. ,.u,u.-i-.,i ....,„«iiei. Eogliih Cotlan

id Hanwi. iimng ir^in bognd and other tr»»et-
H(r Tninki, tc. V.'tj, a gnat eanety of iie-
^kuyeviii, auch aa MoTMmen'a Capa. Hoi.
era. ti^Kcei, Delta ifiU and plain, gilt arul pliln
DCkades. a xry fo Svonla and Pmnla. <iut
> abundtneeof rilrertnaunted Wriiipi,af cterr
i.THpiion. Mia. »erychea(ifi>r eaah.oneai

--Jdlci anJ BriJIn.

» *ip> ar
h of tha

iV.VNTED. — A Jwimeyman that ii ■ 3nr
a uorlnaniiSaJJIea.

TlfE lubicriWr'
orCuUM Var

Not let to Jl^eavert.

Apply Bi ihe Store f >nneriy occufNedby Meu>«.

■■ '■ ■ Kitbaom. Ferry-Street.

I. tiijt. s. Day.

ifftr at 9lial«*a1e ai abo»e, all bndaaf
- " ' ' ' -IB C«^^(f™«

.^'/^.

Bcd-Tickinc, Phin',, Stn>s, Oinff-

Thresd< nf <hlTcrint lualiliciand CA^Aora.
Contidennc tji; Hurabiliir of ihr •tiAre arli-
pairoiui* of Uba

patrn

:, inl il,

ALSO.

AKCNupViii. . .»..>. J.,, (tw, MARC.
with al.Mie wbiir (ir,p>m>wlket. aMk
white ipct un Sr* r.p* ■ *.it<> imI a ansD wbite
alripenD har r,/-bi h,n«1 r«tj rtir avarrvav.
«utjted t» p'o«* prvpcnt par etrarjea, b«
Utrhrrsa.y IffiRVlN CLABK

fariaiBgisB..Jailf.SUk Tf

VII
INCIDENTS IN THE FIRST DECADE

THE premium income the first year was almost up to the
;^3,ooo mark, with no losses. The next year that mark
was passed with $3,542.25 in premiums. The losses that
year were ^112.10; in 1813, ^136.13; in 1814, ;^i76.6i and in the
whole of the first decade, $13,357.61. The premiums in that length
of time had footed up $46,586.45. For the year 1909 they were
approximately, $15,000,000; for the period since 1810, $226,781,-
481.58.

Policy No. I was a $4,000 builders' risk, for three months, at a
rate of 12^ cents. No. 5 policy was on a gin distillery for $10,000,
at a rate of ij per cent. No. 21 covered dry-goods to the extent
of $20,000, at 75 cents, and No. 22 hardware, for $20,000, at a rate
of 25 cents.

By the end of the first full year, the company was taking single
risks that exceeded the entire cash assets by one third. And yet
this was not so great a peril as it seems to us, because of the nature
of the business and the general conditions. The prospective
insured had to ask for the favor; his property was carefully studied
and a survey was required. Every one of the directors, as a rule,
knew all about it and, such were the close relationships, the owner's
representations constituted a guaranty.

Contemplating the figures that represent the business being
done these first few years, we should keep in mind the general
situation in the country and in New England in particular. The
troubles with England and France upon the sea and then the War
of 1812 not only spelled finis for most marine insurance, thereby
affecting all insurance, but they bore heavily upon commerce and
all business affairs, so heavily in New England that the governors
of the states held their famous convention in Hartford in 18 14
to consider what means could be adopted to alleviate the condi-
tions.

Economy was rigid, caution the watchword. At the end of the
first year, on May 31, 181 1, the directors voted a dividend of 50

[44]

cents a share, to be paid July i. They also voted the first salary,
in compensation for services rendered through the year just ending.
They voted to pay Secretary Walter Mitchell $300 and $^0 additional
for the use of his office and for firewood. And that became
the amount Mr. Mitchell was to receive through many years to
follow.

The first year's expenses amounted to $530.38. While we have
not all the items, they doubtless included the charge of $25 each
by Lawyer Mitchell and Lawyer Henry Terry for their work in
securing the charter from the Legislature, and also the advertising
bill of Hudson & Goodwin. Items that are on the mutilated sheet
as preserved today are as follows :

"Pd. Aaron Colton for Book-case and table, etc., . . ^21.25
Pd. W. Mitchell procuring fire sacks,* postage and sun-
dry expenses, 58- 38

Pd. One year's salary to secretary, 300.00

Pd. One year's office rent and fire wood 30.00"

The Colton item is recognized as that for the first furnishing
of the "office." Receipted bills which have been preserved show
that later Secretary Mitchell received payments for special services,
as did also the president. Though we often hear it referred to now
with a smile, the salary was quite good for those times and in view
of the services rendered, which could not have occupied more than
a fraction of the secretary's time. Altogether, then, there was
nothing niggardly about the management.

There is another bill which may have been included among
the secretary's sundries. It is the bill of Deacon Abner Reed of
Windsor, the engraver and printer, the man who designed the plates
which adorned the top of the policies and who did most of the fine
printing. The amount is $7.89 for a total of 526 policies printed
that year. In 1815, 227 were printed, at an expense of $3.40. It
is probable that a fair surplus had been left from the first year and
that Reed's bill for 227 in 18 15 was his second for policies. They
were not being used very fast. Premium income and interest
combined the first year had amounted to $3,500 and in 1820 it had
little more than doubled.

We also learn from the first year's accounts that the company
had overdrawn at the bank to the extent of $71.34 and that it had

* See page 55.

[45 ]

an "insurance account" of ;$l, 168.66. This is the first year's trial
balance :

DR.

I — Bills receivable 3d installment, . . . .

8 — Bills discounted (due 16 June), . . . .

II — Hartford Bank stock, 14 shares (n par.

$135,000.00

12,140.00

5,600.00

^152,740.00

CR.

1 — Stock, 3,000 shares 50, |Si50,ooo.oo

2 — Cash, overdrawn the bank, 71-34

13 — Insurance acct., 1,168.66

14 — Dividends (unpaid), 1,500.00

$152,740.00

The directors themselves gave more and more of their time,
with almost weekly conferences though not formal meetings to be
recorded, without any thought of compensation or the lightening
of their labor, until well on toward the middle of the century. They
had pride in their institution and it was worth something to them
to know that every detail of the work was being done properly.
How in later years, without a moment's hesitation, they staked
their fortunes for their honor will appear in its place in our
story.

Despite all there was to contend against, conservative manage-
ment continued and December 3, 181 1, the directors declared a
dividend of 30 cents a share, to be followed by one of the same
amount at the end of the next six months, or 60 cents for the year,
an increase of 20 per cent.

A counterfeit bill on the Hartford Bank, which still remains
folded into the original bank book, tells of one of the evils that had
to be looked out for, and at the same time is a silent reminder
of the unsettled condition of the currency. There was a general
suspension of specie payment during this period of great depression
of commercial credit, and resumption of specie payment for the
country at large did not come till 18 17. And then there was to
follow the panic of i8ig.

[46]

October 3, 1812, the directors voted to call for an instalment
of $5 a share on stock subscriptions. At their December meet-
ing, they voted a 30-cent semi-annual dividend, as in the previous
year, and six months later doubled it, making 90 cents for the
year, an increase of 50 per cent. That year, 1813, the stockholders'
meeting, which always had been held at Ransom's Inn, was held
at Bennett's Coffee House, which had developed into a rival of
Ransom's and was to be a favorite meeting place for some years to
come.

The salary of Secretary Mitchell was now paid semi-annually
instead of yearly, and the other payments to him had increased
from ;^30 a year to ^60. Money was coming in. The dividend
for 1813-1814 was $1.20, an increase of 333 per cent. The fall
of that year saw rather hard sledding and the vote for a semi-annual
dividend at the December meeting of the stockholders was omitted.
Nevertheless American pluck was superior to adversity and he who
read the signs of the times aright had confidence in the future.
It was in 18 15 that the steamer Fulton sailed up the Connecticut,
giving Hartford people visual evidence of the revolution steam was
working in commerce. A neighbor of the Hartford people, John
Fitch of Windsor, already had discovered that steam could be
utilized in navigation (in the last quarter of the previous century),
and it is said that at about this time, a Hartford man actually
traveled the streets of the city in a steam propelled carriage, pre-
cursor of the automobile.

Black as were the clouds, Hartford was optimistic and the
Hartford was buoyant — born so and never to be anything else.
The old dividend of 60 cents for the previous six months reappears
on the books for July, 1815. Also it was voted that transfer of
policies could be made by the secretary without convening the full
board — good token of increasing business. Yet Mr. Mitchell
was exceedingly cautious and would not allow additional stoves
in an insured building until in November of this year he referred
the matter to the directors and they voted that the company's con-
sent could be endorsed by him upon the policies. The times
required this change in policy; stoves were increasing in number.
Later times were to require other changes and the company was
going to be ready to meet them promptly.

We have statements for the beginning of the last half of the
decade, showing the assets and liabilities (dividends). They are

[4^ ]

made out in Secretary Mitchell's quaint handwriting and read as
follows, dated January 20, 1816:

Dividend payable in June next )

presumed the same as heretofore j ;^i,8oo.oo

To meet which, say

6 mos. dividend in Hartford Bank 3% 792.00
Int. on notes to be renewed 15 Feb., . 142. 11
Dividends on 7 p ct. stock payable on

and previous to I July, 122.50 1,056.61

Leaving, $ 743 . 39 to be

provided for
And from the receipt of the last year for the corresponding 6 months it
may be safely calculated that the premiums to be received from this time to
the 1st June will be at least double the sum to be provided for.

The "statement of funds" is as follows, for the same date:

66 Bank Shares, at ;^4i6, ^27,456.00

7 p ct. Stock at cost, 3,517.80

Ams. of money loaned on notes pay. 15 Feb., . . 9,474.00

Cash in Bank, 979.27

^41,427.70
Capital paid in, 30,000.00

Surplus, $11,427.70

A dividend of $3.81 on 3000 shares would be, . . ;^ii,430.oo

On February 20 following, it was voted that on April i stock-
holders pay in $4 on their instalments and at the same time receive
a dividend of $4, a little better than the ^3.81 in the foregoing state-
ment. The following June (18 16) it was voted that stockholders
turn in 25 per cent of what they owed on their stock at their next
renewal of notes, and that 25 per cent be paid in at each subsequent
renewal until the notes were paid in full. There was a 60-cent
dividend in July.

A unique incident, by the way, marked that period. For some
reason there came a hitch in the payment of taxes due in 1 8 16.
It may have been that there was a controversy about this par-
ticular tax account, but we notice that there was no allowance for
taxes, due in July, under the "liabilities" in the statement. It is

[48I

WALTER MITCHELL

SEC RET AR Y

1810-1835

possible, therefore, — and considering the comparatively heavy
losses that had come, — that we have in this an illustration of the
old hand-to-mouth method which, due to inexperience, was to be
sharply reversed before many years had passed and in plenty of
time to save the company from the disaster which overtook sundry
similar organizations. This is the bill which lingers in the com-
pany's archives :

The Hartford Fire Insurance Company:
Gentlemen:

Your State, County, Town & Highway Taxes on the List of 1815 due
me are as follows :

Viz. State Tax xixr on the Dollar, $31.68

My Fees for collecting — Do

County Tax -nnr¥ on the Dollar, 6

My Fees for collecting — Do — ,

Town Tax i-f^ on the Dollar, 158

My Fees for collecting — Do — , 4

Highway Tax yfir on the Dollar, 63

My Fees for collecting — Do — , i

;?266

87
33
24

40
04
36
67

59

Aug. 22 — 18 1 7. Rec'd payment by the Sale at Public Auction
of three (3) shares of their Hartford Bank Stock
amounting to Three Hundred & fifteen Dollars,*
the overplus of which sales being forty-eight
Dollars and yVV I have this day paid over to
Walter Mitchell, Esq., Secretary of sd. Company

as pr. his Rect

Wm. Ely, Collector.
Another entry on February 20, 1816, causes us to pause a moment
in following the company's progress to consider its cautious efforts
to widen its territory and its earliest recognition of the value of
well selected agents. And this brings us back again to the very
first pages of the historic old record book, for it is on those pages,
preceding all else, the very place of honor, that a list of agents, or
surveyors, was kept. The list was begun as a sort of memorandum,
without much formality, but as time went on and the agents were
passed upon regularly by the board of directors, the record is fairly
complete for a number of years.

* Par value now $ioo.

[51 ]

Jonathan G. W. Trumbull of Norwich, Conn., of distinguished
family, was authorized to underwrite, December 27, 1810. The
first representative to be appointed outside of Connecticut was
Ebenezer F. Norton who in 181 1 was given the power to take insur-
ance and countersign policies, with headquarters at Canandaigua,
N. Y. It is to be said of him, in the interests of historical accuracy,
that he did not remain long in the service. There was n't "much
doing." Like his fellow agents, he received no commission, merely
the charge for the survey and the policy fee of 50 cents, which the
insured paid.

Ephraim Kingsbury was appointed at Haverhill, Mass., June 8,
1 8 14, "with authority to receive proposals for insurance, to deter-
mine the premiums and to issue policies for the company," and he
was to "retain for his services the cost of the policy" — which
included the survey.

This entry of February 20, 1816, which caused us to pause,
recorded the first regular commission ever authorized by the Hart-
ford's directors. The firm of Hooker & Brewster of Middlebury,
Vt., was to be allowed a commission of 50 cents on each policy of
over ^1,000. The system of percentages did not come in till three
years later. As for the Messrs. Hooker & Brewster, there was a
fo,ooo loss in their town less than three months after they were
appointed — the first loss to receive formal notice in the records
of the directors' meetings, though every loss, like every appointment
and piece of underwriting was passed upon by the board.

[52]

VIII
THE WAR UPON FIRE

THAT Middlebury loss was promptly paid and the stock-
holders got their 6o-cent dividend in July, 1816. Elisha
Colt was elected to the directorate that year. The first
change in the original board had come in 181 5 when Thomas Glover
was succeeded by Spencer Whiting. He remained but one year
and Mr. Colt, who like Mr. Whiting was one of the charter mem-
bers, took his place. In 1817 there were three changes. David
Watkinson, Thomas K. Brace and Ward Woodbridge went out
and Edward Watkinson, Roswell Bartholomew and Eliphalet
Terry, who was to be the second president, came in. John Russ
succeeded Daniel Buck in 1818 and was succeeded by Jesse Savage
the next year.

In addition to declaring their 60-cent dividend in December
of that year, 1816, the directors voted to purchase ^600 worth of
United States funded 7 per cent stock and to call 25 per cent of
loans on notes. The next July brought another dividend of 60
cents.

In December, 181 7, Nathaniel Patten was authorized to sign
stock certificates and policies as president pro tem. the first indica-
tion of the need that was slowly developing for a vice president.

An entry in November, 18 18, leads us to inquire into the methods
for fighting fire, in which the company manifested keen interest.
On that date the directors ordered that Augustus Andrus, Colonel
Watrous, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Rogers each be given ^15, Elisha
Sears $10 and H. Lovell ^5 for their work in extinguishing a fire
on November 2.

Other entries having to do with the company's efforts to
encourage preservation of property throw light on the customs of
those times, and thereby upon the chances of fire and consequent
loss to the fire insurance companies. There is an item of ;^I2 paid
to Secretary Mitchell in 1819 for a "watch." The day of cheap
watches had not come, and most of the pocket timepieces of that
generation were worth more than ^12 for old metal. The "watch"

[53]

referred to was one of the town watchmen. In November, 1819,
the directors voted ^20 toward a "watch for the city."

In 1 8 12 there was a "watch" of four men whose duty it was to
patrol the streets and keep an eye out for an incipient blaze. For
their services they received $1 a night. Soon, however, the number
of nights that each could serve in any one year was reduced to
twelve, and even at that, the times being hard, the burden upon
the community was so great that the lift from the insurance com-
pany in 1819 was very much appreciated.

In 1820 the number of the watch was increased to five who
were to parade with stick and lantern nightly from December to
April. To meet the expense a subscription fund was raised, and
it does not appear that there was any taxation for this purpose until
1822 when one mill was levied. As late as 1840, every able-bodied
man in Hartford had to attend fires whatever time they came and
whatever the weather, or pay a fine of $2. At least, such were the
regulations.

In July, 1834, the board voted ^50 toward an engine for the
city. In November of the following year it was voted to offer a
reward of ;^5 for the first company to reach a fire and get its engine
into action.

The only systematized method for fighting fire is portrayed in
the illustration at the top of the old policies. There were hand
engines but the water for them had to be supplied by a bucket bri-
gade which would form a double line to the nearest stream or wells
and the buckets would be passed from hand to hand on up to the
machine.

ti I What was required by law in the way of fire service was made a
means of sociability and a source of honor by the enterprising young
men. Their companies and brigades, each member equipped
with a leather bucket, partook of the nature of clubs, with occasional
feastings and picnics. As many readers still can remember, they
were succeeded by the "volunteer firemen" wearing red shirts
and shovel-brimmed leather helmets. In many cities enough of
the volunteers survive in these days of steam engines, self-
propelled machines and paid departments to keep up the names
of the organizations in which they took such pride, to hold
frequent meetings for talking over the years when they "ran
with the machine" and to parade in their fiery uniforms on gala
occasions.

[54]

In all the better organized companies it was the duty of certain
squads to do what they could to carry the goods in the burning
building to a place of safety, acting as a sort of salvage corps.
The "fire sacks" referred to in the items of the first year's
expense (page 45) played an important part in the early days.
Each fireman carried one of these sacks to aid in removing goods
from buildings, and the donations of them from the insurance
company were most gratefully received. In 1837, the city hav-
ing arranged to provide the sacks, there was a regular sack
wagon for each fire company. These wagons were discontinued in
1864.

In England the public let the fire insurance companies do most
of the fire-fighting, perhaps because their rivalry led them on to
make a showing. Vice President Richard M. Bissell of the Hart-
ford Fire Insurance Company, in one of his lectures in the insur-
ance course at Yale University, in 1908, gave this account of how
things were done over there: "The ordinary method of preventing
the spread of fire at that period [the early days of fire insurance]
seems to have been by blowing up buildings by gunpowder, and
this work was commonly done by the artillery, or Royal Gunners.
The early insurance companies used also bucket brigades and
hand-pumping engines. Each company had its own liveried fire-
men, who were expected to guard its interests. Later some of the
companies organized corps of watchmen and patrolmen who should
discover fires in their incipiency, give the alarm and summon the
firemen of the company for whom they worked. Still later, when
the practice of insuring personal property began, it was found
advisable by the Sun office — the first, it will be remembered,
to transact that class of business — to provide a body of men
for the purpose of removing insured goods from burning build-
ings and for protecting them when so removed from thieves and
pilferers.

"As companies multiplied, so did their private fire and salvage
corps increase in number, until in 1808 fifty fire engines were kept
by the companies in London alone. In 1825 a number of these
companies consolidated their fire brigades. In 1833 all were united,
but not till 1866 was the establishment turned over to the city. It
seems very strange that private corporations should have so long
been allowed to control and direct this important branch of civic
administration." ■

55

Thus there was ample warrant for the Hartford Fire Insurance
Company's contributing for the "watch" and for the improved
hand engines when they came, and also for awarding prizes or
giving bonuses for those who distinguished themselves in the battles
with the devouring element.

The American companies did not, like the English, have their
own fire companies or corps but with clever ingenuity they under-
took to designate plainly what buildings were insured. Some have
thought that this was merely a species of advertising, and into that
it did degenerate in the later days. But the original purpose was
to arouse special effort on the part of the people in putting out fire
in the buildings designated. It is to be remembered that many
of the companies were local mutual companies in which the neighbor-
hood had a financial interest. Also in this designating there was
a kind of warning to incendiaries, somewhat as there is in the labeling
method of the burglary insurance today.

The designation was by means of a metal plate, bearing the
company's name, tacked up over the front door. In England this
enabled particular companies' firemen to distinguish which buildings
they were to expend their energies upon, but in this democratic
country where there were no proprietary companies of firemen
and where all had learned to help each other in an emergency,
these plates were not used for that purpose but rather to certify
to the identity of the property insured; also in a way they were
looked upon as establishing the credit and standing of the property
owner to whose buildings they were affixed. Up to comparatively
recent times the metal markers have been used in the rural districts
because the farmers rather liked the looks of them and desired to have
it known that they were insured. On many buildings the signs
tarried long after the insurance had expired, and not a few of them
can be seen today on old farmhouses in Pennsylvania, New York
and New England.

That in cases of direst extremity we still have to resort to the
primitive English method of blowing up buildings we have had
painful illustration in recent years. But from the bucket brigade
to a stand-pipe or sprinkler system is one of those transitions which
it is well to take time to contemplate.

One word as to some of the early accounts of fire losses. Here
is a claim made out for Joseph Wheeler whose name appears in
the list of original subscribers :

[ 56]

List of damage done house and fuiniture belonging to Joseph Wheeler
by the fire of September 19 —

32 square glass broke paid for setting and mending frames,$4.50
I Bed Stead sides and end piece gone and rope, ... 2.00

I silk umbrella (new) lost, 5.00

I sett castors cost 12 dolls, damage, say, 4.00

I salt cellar broke, 1.50. 2 or 3 Tumblers broke, . . 2.00
Damage done Paint on house, Barn etc., 18.00

35-5°
Deduct Umbrella, 5.00

30.50
Clock key lost, 50

31.00
Policy 794. Paid in full. Dec. 7, 1819.

An umbrella was about as uncertain a quantity then as it is
now. The claimant who was so honest to own up when he found
his after the excitement of the fire was over and there had been an
assembling of the household goods each person had taken out with
tender if not sane care, well deserved to have added to his list the
missing clock key. The prices of umbrellas, clock keys and salt
cellars are pleasingly compared with the prices today. Director
Wheeler had occasion again to be thankful that he was insured;
his dry-goods store caught fire and his claim of January 21, 1812,
for ^ii2.ioJ, was allowed.

The first loss of any account was on Charles Jencks & Co.'s
distillery April 10, 1812. The account rendered was for $150.75
but a deduction of $14.62 was made. A prominent item was the
mash ("marsh") used for fighting the fire.

Then the company had to pay for rum. Rum was rather plenty,
not only for social events but for house-raisings, military trainings
and sundry other occasions. As a lubricant for human machines
it had to be recognized by the insurance company in which there
were so many worthy churchmen. After a fire in an Enfield mill —
not far from Hartford — the company paid for the repairs. A new
shaft was made over in Tolland, some r\venty miles distant. It
cost a dollar for a horse to drive over there and back. Labor of
men to fit the shaft, nineteen days, was charged up at $35. Then

[ 57 ]

there were "three quarts of brandy drank by hands," ^i. If the
bosses drank any, they must have paid for it out of their own pockets.

Noah Patten's house was damaged by fire and bill for expenses
was rendered in January, 1814. The total amount for repairs was
^152 of which ^3.50 was for spirituous refreshment for the "car-
penters and joiners."

Some of the books they read then and the value of them are
shown by the account for a fire apparently in a local bindery or
publishing house in 1819. In the memorandum are these items:

1,000 President's Tour at ;?i.25, $1,250

500 Memoirs of Jackson, 625

800 Labourne's Campaigns at $2.25, 1,800

5 Setts Scott's Bible, 160

500 Uncle Sam in Search after his Lost Honor at 50c, . 250

The relative value of Mr. Scott's Bibles and Uncle Sam's honor
is rather notable. And judging by the supply in stock, the Presi-
dent's tours must have made such interesting reading that the book
was one of the "best sellers."

Public expression of gratitude for efforts in fighting fire was
common down to a late day. A card by Enoch Perkins, an original
stockholder, in 1827, tells us something about the fire department
as well as gives us an impression of the "danger" a house could
be saved from when it was threatened by a "conflagration." It
reads thus :

" Enoch Perkins presents his most cordial thanks to the engineer,
fire wardens, fire companies and citizens for their able and spirited
exertions which by the blessing of God were successful in preserving
his home from imminent danger when threatened in the conflagra-
tion which took place on the night of the 9th instant."

[58]

ll

ELIPHALET TERRY

PRESIDENT
1835 1849

IX

AT THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA — EXPANSION

THE year 1820 marks the beginning of a new period in the
history of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company.
Fire insurance was reveaUng greater possibihties than
had been contemplated. The horizon was widening mightily.
The sufficiency of ^15,000 in cash at the outset and of a compara-
tively local (and practically uncultivated) territory was soon to
become a cause of general wonderment as public appreciation of
the need of indemnity against loss deepened.

In a word, the proportions of the undertaking were looming
large. As they impress themselves upon us today, to be sure, they
were hardly discernible in 1820, but events and the progress of affairs
as a whole, during the next fifteen years in particular, were making
themselves felt and were working a radical modification of the
views of 1 8 10. If it is true of most successful and enduring enter-
prises that they exceed earliest expectations and develop in broader
channels than were foreseen, it must be said that it is preeminently
true of the business of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company.

Uplifting tendencies had been operating since the very first
year, but with 1820 we are entering upon a period when transitions
were to compel speedier readaptation, with retrogression and col-
lapse as the only alternative. Wider territory lay open and waiting;
closer application to the business as a business was not an option
but a demand, and system was bound to evolve some way — it must
be the best way. The changes were not to be sudden. They were
to come one after another; wisdom is engendered by experience.
But roughly speaking, 1820 may be taken as the date when, first
conceptions more than realized, the great future began more defi-
nitely to shape itself. For this reason, the years immediately follow-
ing are preeminently worthy of the attention of the reader of the
company's history.

And following the main line of development, with now and
then digressions for minor details of special interest, we may divide
our consideration into rvvo parts — expansion and readjustment.

[ 61 1

It was a good time for expansion. The management was alive
to that fact. Activity in the financial world on the part of the men
in the company had been demonstrated again and recently when,
in 1819, the Society for Savings was established — today the largest
savings bank in the state of Connecticut and with Director Jonathan
B. Bunce of the Hartford Fire as president. Daniel Wadsworth
was the first president, Elisha Colt treasurer, and Ward Wood-
bridge, James H. Wells, Michael Bull and Colonel Henry Hudson
were associated with them as directors.

The city of Hartford itself was awakening after the depression
of the war period. What was true of Hartford was true of other
cities and towns throughout eastern United States. The last half
of the preceding (and first) decade of the company's history had
shown fair progress, but it was seen that there were now possibilities
that the next could be better, or at least more stability be secured.
There had been a tremendous advance in every quarter.

In turning aside a moment for another note on the customs of
the day, we get a bit of color and likewise a strand for the still con-
tinuous thread of our story. Faithful chronicling has necessitated
reference to spirituous products of foreign lands in the stores of
leading merchants, to the insurance on a distillery — a compara-
tively frequent sort of structure as one was getting about on his
travels,— and to the presence of strong drink at social functions
of the elite. The early directors of the company were at one with
the times and they preserved for this abstemious generation's perusal
most of their bills down to the early '20's.

About once in six months, after dividends and Mr. Mitchell's
salary had been paid, they met at some one of the best hostelries
and had two or three friends to sup with them. Thus on July 30,
181 1, suppers for twenty-six of them, furnished by Joseph Pratt,
as per his bill, cost $28. John Bennett was the caterer on January
12, 1 8 14 (and on several subsequent occasions) — "fourteen suppers,
;^34.50." That was one of the heaviest bills of the series, whatever
may have been said of the supper. However, he got ^51.75 for
entertainment of the " proprietors and number of gentlemen, 30
in number" in December, 1821, but only from $3 to ^5 from that
date on for some years. Daniel Bulkley's receipted bill for Novem-
ber 23, 181 7, accounts for twenty-three suppers at 75 cents a supper;
eighteen bottles of "M" at $1.50, "2 spirits" at $1 and "2 doz.
cigars" at 25 cents — total $46.75.

[62]

A new figure in the insurance world is introduced to us by means
of these supper bills, the more worthy of consideration because of
the important role that this man was to play in insurance and that
his descendants after him were to play in the world of national and
international finance. Joseph Morgan was the keeper of Morgan's
Coffee House which was gaining popularity. There the "election
ball" was held annually. The third fioor of the building had been
especially adapted for it, with its "spring floor," recessed window
seat — what a joy at a ball! — three chandeliers and two oval mir-
rors, one at each end of the room. There was nothing much like
it anywhere in these parts, and New York itself had few rivals.

A bill of Joseph Morgan's reads as follows :

HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY,

TO Jos. Morgan, DR.
1818

Dec. 8. To 28 Suppers — 5s., $24.50

14 Bottles M. Wine, 12s., 28.00

I " Spirits 7s ip

I bottle Brandy, 9s., . . 2.75

6 Glasses Gin Sling, .50

36 Cigars, 3 cents, 1.08

$56.83
Jan. 4, 1819.

Reed Payment.
Jos. Morgan.

Joseph Morgan was born in West Springfield, Mass., in 1780.
He had come to Hartford only as recently as 181 7. He continued
in the hotel business till 1835. Interested in farming and stock
raising, he bought and cultivated a large tract of land where now is
one of the chief resident sections of the city. For some years prior
to his death in 1847, he traveled extensively for the /Etna Insurance
Company of which he was one of the original directors.

The son, Junius Spencer Morgan, born in West Springfield in
1813, was a director in the Hartford Fire from 1836 to 1841 and
again from 1843 to 1852. After experience in the New York bank-
ing house of Morgan, Ketchum & Co., from 1834 to 1836, he returned
to Hartford and was a dry-goods merchant. In 1851 he went to
Boston and became a member of the firm of J. M. Beebe, Morgan &
Co., where he continued until, on the solicitation of George Peabody of

[63]

London, he gave up his business in Boston and, in 1854, was made
a partner of the London banking house of George Peabody & Co.
On Mr. Peabody's retirement in 1864, the firm name was changed
to J. S. Morgan & Co. Mr. Morgan gave $100,000 to the funds
of the Wadsworth Atheneum. His death was caused by a runaway
accident in Monaco, Italy, in April, 1890.

His son, ]. Pierpont Morgan, was to perpetuate the name and
fame of his family and in these present days he has erected in Hart-
ford, adjoining the Wadsworth Atheneum, a beautiful memorial
to his father, — the Junius S. Morgan Art Gallery.

James Junius Goodwin, a director in the Hartford Fire since
1878, is a son of Junius S. Morgan's sister, Lucy Morgan, and James
Goodwin, Jr., who was a director from 1840 to 1878.

The directors, viewing the situation as a whole, perhaps at
that 1819 supper, realized that there were more possibilities than
they were improving. Their mercantile experience and commerce
had trained them to look far beyond the confines of Hartford and
of Connecticut, and they were convinced that Hartford insurance
as well as Hartford commerce should have a broader field. What
agents they had at this date were for the most part in territory from
which their warehouses drew the produce which they shipped away.
The field beyond was not well covered by the companies that had
survived the trials of the war era.

In 1820 there were twenty-eight stock companies in America.
Of these seventeen were in New York state, half a dozen in Pennsyl-
vania, two in Connecticut, one in Rhode Island, one in Massachu-
setts and one in New Jersey, but not all of them destined to a long
existence. There was a ban on foreign insurance companies.
Pennsylvania and New York had laws forbidding them to do busi-
ness in those states and these laws were not repealed until after
the New York fire of 1835.

As Mr. Oviatt remarks, relative to many of the companies,
transacting mostly a local business in America: "There was but
little security behind the policies issued beyond the current receipts
and the good faith of the men who managed the companies."

Agencies had been planted without much system. There was
none in New York city until 1821. Compensation was a matter
of individual arrangement. Men of the highest type, men whose
names are conspicuous in all branches of our nation's history,

[64]

lawyers, statesmen, literary men, doctors and clergymen gradually
came into service, but as a general rule they sat still and let the
business come to them. Whatever they received in way of com-
pensation was what would be called in later-day slang, so much
"velvet." There was no special incentive to "get out and hustle";
no one was receiving enough to warrant his making effort as a
missionary.

And no doubt it never had occurred to them — or for that matter
to many of the managers until this period — that such work could
be made remunerative. Population had been scattered and had
been prone to "do things the way the fathers did." Transportation
facilities, primitive indeed yet a marked improvement over the
stage-coach and the old mare's back, were forcing more of the
swift transitions of which we have spoken. Then, too, there was
the hum of the looms, attracting a new and less agricultural popula-
tion, and the movement from isolated farm to crowded city had
begun.

What had been luxuries were becoming necessities, and protection
from loss by fire, which only the well-to-do had availed themselves
of, must be extended to cover the many. Owners of homes were
beginning to feel it; promoters of business developments, all-em-
bracing and vast in their proportions, demanded it as the chief
guarantee of ultimate success through certainty and security of the
capital they put into the fast increasing number of residences, stores
and factories.

All things, then, were working together to increase the premium
income and put the company on the road to having the largest
income of any company in America. A story passed on down to
the present generation well illustrates the requirements which were
becoming insistent. The story, like most tradition, has elements
of untruth in it, but, also like most tradition, it serves to indicate
the conditions.

As preserved for us, the tale is that Secretary Walter Mitchell
was n't "tending up" to business. As previously said, his home
was in Wethersfield, a romantic and historic farming center four
miles from the old statehouse. The story as told omits the fact
that Mr. Mitchell had an office close by the statehouse. No. 26^
State street, and that said office was also the office of the insurance
company. It leaves us to infer that all his regular business was
done at his home in Wethersfield.

[65]

Now the significant part of the story is that people were seeking
insurance and the community was much stirred by the annoyance,
entailed by having to drive wa)' to Wethersfield when a policy was
wanted. The road was heavy and clayey, and there was small
certainty that Squire Mitchell would be found at the other end of
the route to make out the desired document. He is represented
as having been testy or at least independent and indifferent. Com-
petition would supply a fitting spur for him.

While it is more than probable that, for one reason or another,
there were days when his Hartford office remained closed so that
insurance could not be had promptly, we have only to turn back
to Donald G. Mitchell's pen portrait of his uncle Walter for refu-
tation of the gossip as to the uncle's personal habits. And the
directors continued him in office until 1835 or until there was a
complete change in administration.

The Hartford business which came directly to Mr. Mitchell
was considerable but, as said, what was agitating the minds of the
directors in the early '20's was the subject of business that ought
to be coming in from outside of Hartford, from towns and cities
which must be experiencing the same insistence of requirements.

For the year ending in April, 1820, the books showed a total
in premiums of 55,258.48; interest brought this up to $8,066.53.
In January, 1819, there had been a dividend of $2 and an instalment
of $2 paid on stock subscriptions. In July of that year the six
months' dividend was $1. For the beginning of 1820 the old book
is silent as to the matter of dividends but one of $1 was voted for

With premiums (as above) of $5,000 and interest of $3,000,
interest was eminently satisfactory, but, all things considered, it
would seem that the premiums should play a somewhat larger part
in creating the fund for dividends. Moreover, the beneficence the
company had to offer should be enjoyed by a greater number of
fellow citizens.

There was needed a more definite plan as to the compensation
of agents. In 18 17 a commission of 5 per cent was allowed, with
a slight increase of rates. By 1820 that was the regulation com-
mission, though there were three men who were getting 10 per cent
on premiums exceeding $1,000 any one year. Gratuities were
voted occasionally for special services. Apparently the 5 per cent
scale was adopted for a basis with exceptions for the larger cities.

[ 66]

Hooker Leavitt was appointed agent at Greenfield, Mass., on this
basis in the latter part of 1819.

In 1820 James Seymour was made the representative at Auburn,
N. Y. Then came an enormous stride forward with the appoint-
ment of Samuel Cowls at Cleveland, O. Before the time of "daily
reports," that was an unconscionably good Sabbath day's journey
from Hartford, but the directors believed they knew what they
were about. And in that year 1820, eleven agents were enrolled.

The results were so satisfactory that the board became still
more venturesome and in 182 1 had Anson G. Phelps establish an
office in New \'ork. Mr. Phelps, who was to become one of the
country's foremost philanthropists and head of a well-known family,
had been engaged in managing a line of vessels while in Hartford.
When the war interfered with this occupation, he went to New
York in 18 15 and formed a partnership with Elisha Peck, a West
Indian merchant. After national peace and quiet had been restored
and it was possible for ships to put to sea again with valuable car-
goes, he built up the leading packet line of the country and mean-
time was creating the largest store in New York. The directors
knew Mr. Phelps personally and had confidence that he if any one
could place the risks which the company ought to have in the
metropolis.

The same year, 1821, the company entered Boston, with George
Wales as its representative there, and Roger S. Skinner was ap-
pointed at New Haven. Mr. Skinner was secretary of the New
Haven Fire Insurance Company, incorporated in 1813 with a capital
of ;^ioo,ooo; no doubt he was busy on a plan of reinsurance which
was to make another epoch in the history of the Hartford Fire.
After 1821, the number of appointments increased considerably
and the foundation was complete for the elaborate system of today.

The dividend in 1820 was $1 each six months, increased for
July, 1 82 1, by 50 cents. At that time the allowance to the secretary
for the preceding six months was fcoy, which, being interpreted,
must mean that he had been at his office quite a little, tradition to
the contrary notwithstanding. The dividend voted the following
December had dropped back to $1 and the allowance to Mr. Mitchell
had increased by 50 cents. By the next July the dividend was $1.50
again.

On June 15, 1822, it was voted that the contract of Agent Roger
S. Skinner of New Haven with Samuel Ward, Harvey Sanford and

[67]

L. E. Wales, as a committee of the New Haven Fire Insurance
Company, June 13, 1822, agreeing to indemnify the New Haven
Fire Insurance Company for losses by fire, be ratified. Such is the
simple record of the first case of reinsurance in this country. The
vote in full reads as follows :

"Voted, That this company do approve and hereby ratify the
contract entered into by our agent, Rogers S. Skinner, Esq., of
New Haven, with Samuel Ward, Harvey Sanford and L. E. Wales,
Esq., a committee of the New Haven Fire Insurance Company,
dated June 13, 1822, agreeing to indemnify said New Haven Fire
Insurance Company against all loss and damage by fire in conse-
quence of any policy of insurance issued by said last mentioned
office."

The New Haven had had three presidents — Isaac Tomlinson,
1813; Charles Denison (see list of original subscribers), 1818, and
Simeon Baldwin, 1820; all men of highest standing but they had
not been able to make a success of the business they had under-
taken. The charter of the company was revoked that year.

It is unfortunate that we have not more written details of this
historic transaction. A subsequent minute shows that the Hart-
ford company gave bond for $150,000 (the full amount of its own
capital) and thus, arguing from the fact that the reinsurance did
not materially increase the regular receipts of the Hartford com-
pany, we may conclude that the bond equaled in amount the entire
sum at risk. The minute, June 21, 1822, is simply this:

"Voted, That whereas said Hartford Fire Insurance Company
in consideration of certain sums paid to them by the New Haven
Fire Insurance Company have agreed to indemnify and save harm-
less said last mentioned company from all damage and loss from
the unexpired policies which have been issued by said last men-
tioned office or company, the better to secure the fulfilment of said
at'reement therefore, the president of the Hartford Fire Insurance
Company is hereby authorized and empowered and in behalf of
said last mentioned company to make and execute a bond to said
New Haven Fire Insurance Company in the penal sum of One
Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars, the condition of which bond
shall be that if said Hartford Fire Insurance Company shall indem-
nify and save harmless said New Haven Fire Insurance Company
from any loss or damage by fire upon any of said policies a list of
which shall be annexed to said bond, then said bond shall be void,

[ 68 1

HEZEKIAH HUNTINGTON

PRESintNT

184t \*l>i

which bond and conditions shall be signed by the president and
countersigned by the secretary and have affixed thereto the seal
of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company and have date the 2ist
day of June, A. D. 1822, and this company will indemnify and
save harmless said president and secretary from all loss and damage
for and by reason of said bond."

The venture was successful. Business kept up well and the
following January (1823), there was a dividend of $i on each share
of stock.

Plainly the company was becoming more important. The
duties devolving upon its officers, accordingly, were becoming
more exacting, or that is to say they were requiring a little more
time from the officers' regular vocations, — a foreshadowing of
readjustment. Consequently, on May 31, 1823, it was voted that
President Nathaniel Terry should receive ^100 for his services the
past six months. This vote was repeated regularly each six months
up to the close of his term in 1835 when an extra ^loo was given
him for the six months preceding. Mr. Mitchell also had been
receiving a little more and by 1824 was getting a total of $460, with
extra allowance for office rent and stationery. From that figure
there was a drop to ^50 in 1830, ^300 in 1831 and $200 in 1832,
after he had received additional help.

There were agents then as far away as Georgia and in October
of this year, 1823, one of them, at Augusta, was registering an
objection. Among his clients was one who objected to the word
"earthquake" in the seventh article of the proposals; he held that
the company should not discriminate against earthquakes, and
the directors yielded, giving the Augusta agent authority to erase
the word. Augusta has been tolerably immune from earthquakes
ever since.

New Orleans was next brought into the Hartford's territory,
with the appointment of Samuel T. Coit there in 1824. In the
same year Timothy Dwight was appointed in New Haven. Mr.
Dwight, a very successful New Haven merchant, was the eldest
son of President Timothy Dwight (the first) of Yale College.
He died in 1844. Caleb Mix succeeded him in the agency at his
death.

Mr. Dwight in 1825 wrote $20,000 on Yale College buildings,
which was reduced to $10,000 in 1841 and continued thus until 1852.
The insurance was divided as follows, the first column being

[71 ]

the original insurance, the second column that from 1841 to
1852:

BUILDING '24-41 '4I-'52

South College, ^2,500 $1,2^0

Atheneum, .... 750

South Middle College, 2,000 1,000

Lyceum, 2,500 1,250

North Middle College, 2,000 1,000

Old Chapel, 1,500

North Chapel, 3,5°° i'75°

North College, 3,250 1,625

President's House, 1,250 625

Dining Hall or Cabinet, 1,500 750

(These buildings, constituting the "Old Brick Row" and the
Cabinet in the rear of them and the president's house near the
northern end, have been torn down except South Middle, the
original Connecticut Hall.)

Thus the history of the oldest college in the state is associated
with the history of the oldest insurance company.

In May, 1826, it was voted to petition the Legislature for an
enlargement of the charter so that the company could insure steam-
boats against loss by water as well as by fire, and vessels at sea
against loss by fire, but the only change adopted along this line
was that already noted in describing the charter by which the words
(applying to ships and vessels) "while in port" were erased.

Since 1823 the dividend had been continuing pretty steadily
at a total of ^4 or ^4.50 a year when in 1828 it dropped to $2, the last
being $1 semi-annual in January, 1829, and there were to be no
more until 1841. Unfortunate as that was for stockholders, it
means a period of special interest for present-day readers — the
period of readjustment.

[72

X

SCHOOL OF EXPERIENCE— READJUSTMENT

THE second decade had seen transitions that were swift,
not alone as viewed in retrospect but in actual fact. Con-
sequent readjustment was imperative and difficult. The
Hartford Fire Insurance Company was in the school of experience
and the schoolmaster was demanding high tuition rates. Some
companies paid with their lives; the Hartford proved rugged and
capable of learning.

First and most important there were the fire losses. In the
three years at the beginning of the decade, or from April, 1820, to
November, 1823, "^^e losses were only $66.25. 1 hat was encourag-
ing for expansion, and what with dividends kept at normal and
office expenditures \^'ithin bounds, even though the $200 salary
was voted to the president at that time, there was something to
surplus. That there was enough to surplus or that the manage-
ment had any conception of what should be enough is not to be
presumed, for that stern lesson Experience not yet had taught.

The twelve months preceding December, 1827, showed losses
five-fold greater than those for any like period prior thereto, a total
of $37,567.67. In September, 1827, the directors voted to borrow
money from the Hartford Bank "on the company's holding of
Hartford Bank stock as collateral." The dividend for that six
months was $2.50; the board must have been hopeful if not cheerful.

The worst was to betide in 1829 when the losses mounted up
to the staggering figure of $89,469.59. With the losses that came in
1830, this made a total for the last half of the decade of $157,846 while
the premium receipts for the same period were only $136,257.29.

Looking back over both decades, to the beginning, the grand
total of losses, up to April, 1830, was $175,926.25, to which must
be added the following items: Elxpenses, $29,791.91; dividends,
$122,100. The income had been this: From premiums, $219,-
640.97; net interest, $21,656.32. Thus the total income had been
$241,297.29 while the disbursements had been $327,818.47 or
$86,521.18 in excess of income.

[73]

The stock was losing some of its popularity. Small blocks of
it were changing hands. The evidence was seen in the board of
directors. David Watkinson, who had left the board in 1817 and
had come back in 1824, completed his term in 1830. Others whose
names drop out during this period are: Elisha Colt, 1828; Edward
Watkinson, 1829; Roswell Bartholomew, 1830; and earlier in
the decade Thomas Day, 1822; Spencer Whiting, 1823, before
the troubles had set in. Thomas Chester, succeeding Mr. Whiting,
had served but two years. The successors to these men had been
Seth Terry, Harvey Seymour, Edward P. Cook, Anson G. Phelps
(the New York representative) and Luther P. Sargeant, the two
last mentioned coming in in 1830.

The year before David Watkinson retired from the board, or
in 1829, Eliphalet Terry and he were appointed a committee to
borrow from the Hartford Bank not exceeding $60,000, again
pledging as security the stock of the bank owned by the company
and also the stock notes for the third instalment. In April, 1830,
the computations revealed an impairment of capital amounting
to ;^42,907.I4, or nearly one-third of the whole. It was not to be
forgotten that the company was gaining a good foothold, for it
lived up to every obligation however heavy; but, that consideration
aside, the bald fact was that, to wipe out the deficiency, the stock-
holders were liable to the extent of about 15 per cent on their stock
notes, over and above the securities in the treasury.

But the day of readjustment had come not for insurance com-
panies alone. There was new industry, new development, in every
quarter. The banking system for the country was far from being
abreast of the progress in population and invention; the active
limbs of the young nation were not wholly free from swaddling
clothes, and it was none too easy to determine what the right things
should be.

In 1824 the Connecticut River Company had been incorporated
with office in Hartford and with Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., Nathaniel
Terry, Eliphalet Terry and Daniel Buck on the board of directors.
The intent was to develop the Connecticut River's possibilities, and
in 1829 '^he present Connecticut River Banking Company, organized
in connection therewith, began business. In 1828 the Hartford
Fire had voted to invest in one hundred and twenty shares of the
Connecticut River Company, and throughout the insurance men
gave their encouragement to the new and successful undertaking.

[74]

Men of the Hartford Fire also were interested in the Phoenix
Bank (estabhshed in 1814) and were to be interested in the Farmers'
and Mechanics' Bank, 1833, and in the Exchange Bank, 1834, of
which EHsha Colt was to be president in 1849. This in addition
to the great interest in the Hartford Bank, and all to indicate what
manner of men they were who had the destinies of the Hartford
Fire Insurance Company in their hands in the earlier days.

For another side-light, we learn that Major Terry, the president
of the company, was the mayor of the city from 1824 to 1831, or
through much of this distressing time which we are now reviewing.

Within the old law office of Secretary Mitchell the increase and
complication of business was having its effect. The correspondence
was large, book-keeping considerable and there was needed a closer
oversight of the losses than Secretary Mitchell, Mayor-President
Terry or any other man with many outside interests could give. It
was necessary to employ some one man who could devote practically
his whole time to a business which, by 1910, was to require the
whole time of one hundred and fifty people at the home office alone.

So Lewis Bliss was appointed "clerk" in February, 1829. He
was to receive such compensation as should be allowed by the board
of directors when making the semi-annual dividend. The terms
were satisfactory to the young man and he at once entered upon
his duties, which quickly proved to be more wide-reaching than
had been expected. In other words, here is another example of
swift transitions.

Hardly had Mr. Bliss begun his work of taking care of the mail
and keeping up the books at his little desk in the corner of the law
office, with its shelves of law books and cupboards and drawers of
legal documents, when he was sent South to adjust the heavy claims
that had come in from Augusta and Savannah. That was in the
latter part of April.

It was the first time a home office man had been sent on such
a mission and again we find new experience for the untrained.
But Mr. Bliss proved equal to the emergency. He had the con-
sciousness that the company wished to do the right thing in every
case, that there was abundant backing and that there must be no
such word as fail. He was vested with authority to draw drafts
on the company, payable sixty days after adjustment was com-
pleted. Though we have no detailed record of this trip, we know
that here, as later in the New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore

[75]

and San Francisco fires, the adjustments were prompt and satis-
factory and that the company made an enviable record for itself,
even if it did have to raise the money by loan from the bank, as
previously told.

At the December meeting of the directors, Mr. Bliss's pay for
the preceding six months w^as fixed at {^250 and that was the basis
for the whole year. It continued at that sum until 1832 when it
was raised to $600 a year and then in 1835 to 58oo.

With business fairly developing itself, we might say, and yet
with losses most serious, — with both financial and business prob-
lems crowding, in this year 1830 — it is desirable to know not only
of the leaders in the company but something about the life and
customs of the holders of its stock. Were they of a sort to be easily
disturbed and thrown into a panic ? Were they of speculative
disposition, wishing to change from one thing to another ? In
time of stress would they feel obliged to sacrifice valuable holdings
or, as the directors had done, could they tide themselves over by
utilizing a well established credit ?

In all the transitions we have been noting, the principles of
the men of means in Hartford had not changed one iota. Then
as today, they were the bedrock principles of honest finance. These
men had securities in plenty, considering the times. The changes
in the directorate were by no means symptoms of alarm. Failures
were rare in any line of business. They were bold men rather
than timid, and yet they had the conservatism of long-headedness
and foresightedness.

Indeed, there had not been much change since the year when
Historian Goodrich ("Peter Parley") wrote of Hartford: "It has
a high tone of general respectability and intelligence." The "few
merchants and many shopkeepers" he referred to then had increased
reasonably in number and it may be that there were still a "few
dainty patricians holding themselves aloof." But fictitious values
there were none. The wild speculation of 1825, beginning with
cotton and involving West India produce, disturbing public funds
and bringing distress in America and abroad, had made small stir
in Hartford.

The country had a population of 12,800,000 and was enjoying
almost unexampled prosperity. While the currency was not all
that could be desired and the long-drawn-out discussion about
giving the United States Bank a new lease of life was unsettling,

[76]

the federal treasury was in excellent condition and the tariff laws
of the administrations of Monroe and John Ouincy Adams were
working to the benefit of most of the country. The West India
trade had been lost to England to be sure, through the conditions
in the treaty at the close of the War of 1 8 12, but Hartford merchants
were confident of a favorable result of the negotiations with Great
Britain on this subject, stubborn as the British government had
seemed to be. What with these the leading topics and with watch-
ing the course of Jackson in his first term as President, the Hartford
people had enough to keep them alert and also enough to reassure
them as to the country's future.

Hartford citizens, then, were serene, optimistic, with good
homes, good churches, good schools, good local administration,
good institutions, good investments and a fair amount of creature
comforts. Several of them had coaches of their own, including
President Terry, Ward Woodbridge and Daniel Wadsworth.*
One of the "Patten letters," speaking of the wealth in 1830, notes
and bitterly bewails that "one person in the town owes nearly
$1,000." Debt for any amount was frowned upon.

With this knowledge of the life, custom and conditions, we
reasonably may assume that, in the seeming crisis for the Hartford
Fire Insurance Company, calm council would prevail and that a
sensible plan of readjustment would be worked out from within —
no wild excitement, no sacrificing of interests but always a thorough
appreciation of what the company should be. And such was the
case.

* Mr. Wadsworth's coach is described as being hung on straps (like Washington's), drawn by four
horses and with coachmen in b'very when the owner set out for a tour into the country.

[77

XI

NEW REGIME

THERE was firm conviction that the company's foundations
had been proved to be everlastingly secure. With calm
counsel still prevailing year by year and yet with a strong
undercurrent of sentiment that the company's affairs were coming
to demand closer application perhaps than some could give them,
matters moved on. In 1834 Mr. Phelps left the board as he wished
to devote all his time to his increasing interests in New York. That
year also Edward P. Cook, Luther P. Sargeant and Isaac Thompson
were replaced by Isaac D. Bull and Fontienne Raphel who were
to remain only one year, and by Roswell B. Ward who was to con-
tinue for two years. Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., was the other
new member, destined to be president from 1849 ^'^ 1864.

The year swung round, with office work increasing, with votes
of ;^50 for the engine for Fire Company No. 4, of fcoo payment to
President Nathaniel Terry for six months' services and 38oo as a
year's salary for Clerk Bliss, and with still keener realization of
the growth of the company, as we have noted, necessitating more
system and care.

President Terry had completed his twenty-fifth year and with
the exception of James H. Wells, who remained one year longer,
was the last of the original directors. During his term of office
the seedling company had developed into a lusty tree. Its roots
had struck deep and its branches were extending farther and more
rapidly than could have been foreseen. The larger it grew, the
more exacting was to be the obligation of those in charge of it and
the greater must be the number of them. Secretary Mitchell also
could feel satisfaction as he contemplated the development since
that June day in 1810 when he opened the new record book and
put his name to the minutes of the first meeting.

With money-making a secondary consideration, directors and
officers had made their way carefully until now for a year or two it
had been evident thatfuU business methods should be employed if the
capital invested were to have fair return, if there were to be absolute

[78]

TIMOTHY C. ALLYN

PRESIDENT
1864-1867

security for the larger and more widely distributed number who were
taking out policies, if the company of Terry and Watkinson and
\^ oodbrid<re and IVIitchell and all the rest was to fulfill its real mission.

O

The board of directors elected at the meeting of stockholders
in June, 1835, consisted of Eliphalet Terry, Hezekiah Huntington,
Jr., James H. Wells, Samuel H. Huntington, Frank J. Huntington,
Albert Day, Samuel Williams, Roswell B. Ward and Elisha Colt
who was elected for his fourth period. Of these, Mr. Terry was
to serve till 1849, Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., till 1865, James H.
Wells till August, 1835, Samuel H. Huntington till 1848 (but with
the year 1842 out), F. J. Huntington till 1836, Albert Day even
till 1874, Samuel Williams till 1837, Roswell B. Ward till 1836
and Elisha Colt till 1836.

Here was more permanency established than had been known
since the early days. And the following year were to come on
Job Allyn who was to serve almost continuously until 1867, Junius
S. Morgan who was to serve until 1852 with only one year out and
George Putnam who was to serve four years. Edwin D. Morgan,
who was elected in 1836, remained but one year and then later served
another term of one year, from 1840 to 1841. It was an epoch
in that men were coming in who were to remain with the company
along into its second half century. Some of them are well remem-
bered by men in active life today.

This board organized promptly by electing Eliphalet Terry presi-
dent and James G. Bolles secretary. President Terry was double
cousin of his predecessor, their fathers being brothers and their
mothers sisters, and from New England's best stock. Asked for a
sketch of her father for the company's archives, Mrs. Mary Terry Col-
lins of Yonkers-on-the-Hudson responded as follows a few years ago :

Eliphalet Terry was a representative man of Hartford of his generation
in the exact sense of that term so often carelessly applied, and is worthy of
especial notice, for epitomizing as an individual the characteristic traits of that
nohle and honored town. As Hartford is a city of heriditary consequence,
of historic renown, of inherited traditions, so Eliphalet Terry traced his
descent from many a name, held in honor among the New England Colonies.

His father, Judge Eliphalet Terry of Enfield, Conn., represented his
town in the General Assembly for thirty-three years continuously in the days
when the most honored men were chosen for such service, and in Enfield,
Eliphalet Terry, jr., was born on Christmas Day in the memorable year of
1776. His maternal great grandfather, the Rev. Nathaniel Collins, pastor

[8. ]

of Enfield Church, was the grandson of Deacon Edward Collins of Cam-
bridge, Mass., who corresponded in cipher with the regicides, GoiFe and
Whaley, and disbursed to them the moneys sent them from England. The
Rev. Mr. Collins married Alice Adams, a granddaughter of Governor William
Bradford. Inheriting from both his parents rare and sterling qualities, and
from a long line of godly ancestry a strongly religious character, of the
hereditary type, the boy of 19, brought to Hartford in the year 1795 the
energy, courage and business ability destined to ensure success and win for
him a place among the foremost men of his town.

He first entered the store of Mr. Church at the junction of Main street
and Windsor and Albany avenues, and in five years had gained the experi-
ence and ability to succeed to the business in his own name upon the death
of his employer. Later a younger brother, Roderick, was associated with
him, and the firm of E. & R. Terry was honored for thirty years as repre-
senting the highest business integrity. Eliphalet Terry retired from business
in 1830 and then devoted himself to those works of public usefulness and
far-reaching benevolence that are perpetuated in many valuable institutions
of the present time. It must be remembered that in that early time the large
associations for benevolence were not in existence and those men were but
the pioneers.

With a few others who believed with him that the interests of his town
demanded the step, he withdrew from the Center Church and founded the
North Church in 1824, over which Horace Bushnell was so long the beloved
pastor. In all church work and kindred activities, Mr. Terry's energies
were tireless, he not only raising or contributing large sums of money but
also giving his personal interest and care. And the same spirit of Christian
responsibility led him to take a deep interest in politics, believing his duty
to his country second only to his duty to the church of God.

His private life was beautiful and without reproach. Called early to
fill the place of both father and mother to his little children, he reared them
with all fidelity and tenderness and they now rise up to call him blessed.
Mr. Terry died July 8, 1849, and sleeps in the North Burj'ing-ground in
Hartford.

In his business integrity and energy, his fidelity to public and private
duty, his strong religious character^ his public-spirited benevolence, Eliphalet
Terry typifies the best and truest spirit of the town where he lived and died,
and those who remember and love old Hartford remember it as personified
in such men as he, and those who remember and love such men as he may
know from them what manner of city was the Hartford of sixty years ago.

The biographers and historians of the city and county place
as high an estimate upon Mr. Terry's character as does she who
knew him so well.

[82 ]

S^retary Bolles was a man admirably adapted for the duties
he \wis to discharge faithfully for fifteen years. In later life he
was collector of internal revenue.

The next act of the new directors was to put Clerk Bliss upon
a regular salary of $800 and to appoint Christopher C. Lyman a
clerk at a salary of 5400. Though Mr. Lyman's original appoint-
ment was for only six months — they had then no way of judging
of a man's special fitness for a position of this sort by the work he
had done in insurance — Mn Lyman was to remain a most useful
member of the office force for two score and three years, leaving
a name that is highly cherished today. It was not long before the
exigencies of the office made it necessary to give him the power to
sign policies and countersign checks as the assistant of the secretary
and perform other duties of much responsibility. Subsequently
he declined an increase of salary, maintaining that what he wa.s
receiving was as much as an assistant secretary ought to receive.
At various times he bought stock and eventually became one of
the company's largest stockholders.

Another step was the removal of the office from Mr. Mitchell's
law office, No. 26 J State street, to No. 16 State street, just west
of the old location and still close to the Hartford Bank. The new
office, while far from being pretentious, was neatly furnished and,
what makes it especially worthy of note in this connection, it was
devoted wholly to the business of fire insurance.

The successive stages were passed — the stages of experiment,
of letting well enough alone and of learning that the roots should
grow proportionately with the branches. It was business now,
business for all concerned. Tradition has it that certain wiseacres,
like those to be found in every generation in every town, knowingly
shook their heads; but the community as a whole had the utmost
faith in the judgment of the new administration and the outside
world soon was to receive unmistakable proof of it. Throughout
the company's history, the best characteristics of each adminis-
tration have been continued in the next.

83]

XII
FIRE TRIED BY THE NEW YORK CALAMITY

EVERYWHERE was the evidence of new blood and gradual
readjustment. In August (1835) it was decided to make
special use of the secretary by sending him to establish new
agencies, trusting him to select the men and to make the contracts
with them. Leaving Mr. Bliss and Mr. Lyman to look after the
office, Secretary BoUes started on a journey which was to prove
eminently satisfactory to the company.

James H. Wells, who had been a director since 18 10, sold his
stock in August and resigned as director. Edwin D. Morgan was
chosen to succeed him.

The premium receipts were enjoying a healthy growth and
the first half year of 1835 was marked by but few losses, less than
j^3,ooo. At the November meeting the directors expressed their
gratification by voting President Terry ^300 salary for the six
months (with a special vote of thanks to him), making Secretary
Bolles's 5500 and giving Mr. Lyman $50 extra.

A dividend was in sight, the first since 1829, and the directors,
following old-time custom, had a supper at which congratulations
were exchanged and bright prospects for the future were discussed.
The story of that supper would make interesting reading but it soon
was to be driven from mind and nothing but the fact that there was a
supper remains to us — in itself enough, however, to furnish contrast
with the story of the next day, which is history of the largest kind.

The next day was December 16 and the news was heralded
that, while the directors had been dining, the city of New York
had been the prey of flames, had had the worst fire in its history.
The main part of the business portion of the city, lying between
Wall, South and Broad streets and Coenties slip, was in ashes.
In the intense cold, it had been next to impossible to make use of
what few facilities they possessed for fighting the flames. Water
had to be drawn from the river; it froze in the hose and the strong
northeast winds drove the flames at will until at length blown-up
buildings furnished a space over which the flames could not leap.

[84]

Nothing like it ever had been known in this country. The later
calamities in Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, and even in San Francisco
caused no greater thrill of horror. The actual loss of $20,000,000
impressed itself at the time as overwhelming, with nothing left of
nearly 700 buildings but smoldering ruins. Panic seized upon
merchants and bankers when one insurance company after another
confessed that the ruin had dragged it down.

Roused from their dreams of plenty, President Terry and
Secretary Bolles did not hesitate a moment. There were not at
hand maps like those of the present day nor yet the modern full
statistical records by which an estimate of the company's loss could
be made. It was known simply that the loss must be very heavy
and there must be no delay in helping to stem the tide of disaster
which threatened to spread throughout the country.

It was a bitterly cold morning, the thermometer below zero.
There were no nicely heated parlor cars, with breakfasts waiting
in them, attached to fast expresses to carry the company's repre-
sentatives to the scene. Other strong hearts well might have
quailed, but Mr. Terry and Mr. Bolles were ready as soon as a
sleigh could be procured. Meantime Mr. Terry had been to the
officers of the Hartford Bank, on which he would draw, and had
pledged his whole fortune as security. It was a long and tedious
journey, with nothing to cheer them, with only a sad and depressing
prospect.

While sufferers from the flames were in the depths of despair,
consternation reigned among the outsiders whose buildings had
not been harmed, because, from what they had heard, fire insurance
was a sham and they were without protection. In the moment
when they felt that fire insurance had failed, they realized the need
of it more than ever. With the smoke still rising, it was difficult to
analyze and exactly fix the fault, but fault there was somewhere
and the whole system must be condemned.

"We will show them," Mr. Terry was saying on his journey.
The importance to them, and to the future prosperity of the country,
of having some one show them, no man could appreciate fully
until he stood among the sufferers. Mr. Terry remained calm
and as soon as he was permitted to express himself he coolly gave
assurance that the Hartford Fire Insurance Company would meet
every obligation, to the last cent.

This first word of encouragement, incredible as it sounded at

[85]

first but coming directly from the president himself, had a wonder-
ful effect. Men who never had realized the value of insurance
began to listen and then to praise and extol. It was Hke a Black
Friday and yet it was a red letter day for the Hartford.

What he had said they would do, Mr. Terry and his associates
did, and did it because they thought it their business and duty to
do it. Shipman, Corning & Co. furnished them an office to which
the claimants crowded. Edwin D. Morgan assisted in every way
and William Walker (the New York agent) and his partner not
only eked out the office accommodations but were invaluable with
their aid in adjusting. It was not till along in February that the
tremendous task was finished. The company had paid out a total
of ^64,973.34.

Had President Terry's action been planned carefully in advance
and purely for commercial advantage instead of being in obedience
to the dictates of the business conscience of himself and his com-
pany, it could have received ncf higher praise for generalship. In
so bravely stemming the adverse tide, he actually turned it his way.
Men follow him who restores their confidence, and men followed
the representatives of the Hartford Fire in New York till the deple-
tion in assets soon was made more than good.

The premium income for the six months preceding April, 1835,
was $19,260.15; for the corresponding six months, ending in April,
1836, the income was $97,841.75. It never was to recede. As
P. H. Woodward says in his sketch, "The day of small things has
passed." There was still more to it; there was a broader signifi-
cance. Mr. Terry was making history for the Hartford Fire Insur-
ance Company by that terrible ride to New York; he was making
history also for commerce of the United States for he was one of
those to demonstrate that genuine fire insurance is salvation for
people whose property is consumed whether in a conflagration or
in a small fire.

And when the commentators say Mr. Terry, they mean the
Hartford Fire Insurance Company since he was but the embodi-
ment of its undying spirit. The directors at home, endorsing him
in all his actions, expressed their appreciation in their records,
ordered payment of Shipman, Corning & Co. for the use of their
office, along with a vote of gratitude, made substantial recognition
of the kindness of William Walker and his partners and gave Mr.
Walker $400 as commutation for income he would have received

[86]

as agent had not the new business been assumed by the company's
officers.

President Eliphalet Terry found it necessary to give more of
his time to the business than his predecessor had been obHged to,
yet he had other interests appeaUng to him, and his own affairs
and the company's were hkely to call him away from town for
several days at a time. By February of this year, 1836, it was
deemed wise, therefore, to have a vice president in the board of
directors and Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., was honored with the
position, the first formal vice president the company had had.
No specific office work devolved upon him and there was no
salary attached to the office, then or until 1903.

Not only in New York but throughout the land, one result of
the New York fire was to arouse more and more people to the need
of fire insurance; the name of the Hartford having gone far and
wide, old agencies were doing more work and clearly it was time
to be establishing new ones. In May, Samuel H. Huntington was
sent as far as Indiana to select good men to look after the company's
interests in the Hoosier State which was well on the road to its
present prosperity.

At the directors' meeting in May the matter of travel by directors
and officers in behalf of the company, hitherto mostly at their own
expense, was discussed with the result that it was ordered that
thereafter the sum of $3 a day and expenses be allowed to any
director making trips in the company's interests. At the same
time $150 extra was voted to President Terry with ^200 for his
salary for the preceding six months; $150 extra to Secretary Bolles
in addition to his salary of $500, and ^50 in addition to Assistant
Secretary Lyman's salary of $100. Then the question of the secre-
tary's traveling expenses came to demand attention and in June it was
decreed that an allowance of $2 a day should be made him and the
company cover all his expenses while away from home on the various
trips he was called upon to take for the welfare of the business.

The premium income this first year after the fire was ;^ 124,992
as against $37,732 the previous year, a gain of $87,260 or 232 per
cent. It was nearly half as much again as the total losses by the
New York fire. And yet the directors had been so well pleased
with those 1835 figures that they had had a joyous supper.

Much insight is to be gained from a further analysis of these
premium figures.

[87]

XIII
HEAVIER LOSSES, GREATER INCREMENT

THIS relatively enormous increase in premium income in
1836 tells of more than the increase in agencies, but we
will consider that increase first since it is such an essential
part of the company's story.

The new states added to the list that year were Maine, New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, eleven in all, to
say nothing of Canada where also the company had made entrance.
That is a larger increase by states than marks any other one year
before or since. On the books there were already a few policies in
parts of this territory but there had been no regular agencies there.

The size of this premium income also may be taken as indicating
another new era for all fire insurance in America. One of the
lessons taught by the New York fire was that rates were inadequate.
The people having learned the value of insurance they were willing
to pay what the companies thought were adequate rates for risks
assumed, and there was a more reasonable margin for commissions
for the agents who placed the risks. Thus was the task of extending
the network of agencies greatly facilitated.

It was especially important to the Hartford that only the best
men be selected as representatives, and frequent trips from the
home office were consequently imperative. ■ (We must not forget
how this "home office" looked even then — scarcely larger than
the rooms of many rural agents of the present time and perhaps
not as well furnished.) We have seen the caution exercised in
placing risks when the business was mostly local and that the first
agents were appointed only after due consideration by the board
of directors. One conflagration, not to mention other experiences,
had made clear that the men representing the company at a distance
must be equally cautious, of equally sound judgment. This con-
sideration naturally would have come first into the minds of the
directors, as a basis, so to speak, for the elaborate agency system
that was to be perfected in time.

[88]

GEORGE L. CHASE

PRESIDENT
1867-1908

Further, this growth in income well might seem to imply that
a larger share of business was coming to a solid company. Most
of the New York companies and some others succumbed to that
New York disaster of 1835. Thus with a sudden rise in demand,
there were fewer companies to furnish supply. To be sure the
situation aroused more venturesome men to activity and new com-
panies were started, but by far the larger proportion of them were
mutual companies and their lives were to be short. They were
moderately successful for a time, with their low rates and their
theory of community of interest, but few of them long survived.

Again, the people whose insurance failed them at the time of
the New York fire — not simply those who lost property but those
around the country whose property had been insured in the failing
companies — and likewise the observers of this suffering were
represented in the legislatures of the various states. It came to
them forcibly that fire insurance was a subject for legislation — an
idea which was to be carried to extremes in later days.

The demand was natural that policy contracts should mean
more and that companies should have a firmer foundation than
had been revealed for many of them. Massachusetts began the
legislation in 1837 with a statute requiring companies to have a
fund which should make it certain that their contracts should be
fulfilled — a step toward what is now known as the unearned pre-
mium fund. From the New York fire, then, we may date the
principle of state supervision, and at the same time we may note
the first governmental recognition of the magnitude and impor-
tance of the business.

The General Assembly of New York State went so far as to
consider a proposition for taxing the companies in a way which
seemed to President Terry and his associates to be eminently unjust.
Secretary BoUes went over to Albany and read a few lessons on
finance with such excellent effect that in the early part of 1837 he
won formal commendation and $300 in cash from an appreciative
board of directors.

Mr. Bolles's salary in May was advanced to ^700 for six months,
and Mr. Lyman's to $300 with a seventy-five-dollar gratuity. For
the last six months of the year, the president received ^250, Mr.
BoUes ^750, and Mr. Lyman ^375. At the end of the next six
months the worthy assistant secretary's salary was to go up to $400
or to the rate of ^800 a year.

[91 ]

These points as to the company's activity and prosperity lose
much of their force if we have not knowledge of the relative con-
dition of business in general. Jackson had entered upon his second
term as President. He had carried out his resolve to put an end
to the United States Bank, despite the opposition of Congress,
and the bank's ^10,000,000 of surplus funds had been taken from
its vaults in 1833 and had been distributed among certain banks
designated in the various states.

At this time, 1837, there was a financial panic, due some said to
the annihilation of the bank, others said to the fact that the bank
ever had existed in a free country. Whatever the cause, the panic
was on. In May, 1837, specie payment was suspended in Hartford
as in New York, and there was not to be noticeable recovery from
the panic for four years. The more credit to the Hartford Fire
for the showing it was making.

It is to be remembered that no dividends had been paid since
1829 and there were those among the stockholders, doubtless, who
thought this interval should not be prolonged unduly. The manage-
ment had observed what had escaped the attention of most of the
other companies that it was wisest to employ the surplus funds to
build up, and to make doubly safe what had been built up, — expand-
ing and readjusting — until such time as payments to stockholders
could not mean the slightest impairment of strength in an emergency.
More companies of that period would have been alive today had
they been governed by such policy.

The board of directors felt the criticisms of the more uneasy
among the stockholders in this time of financial depression and in
June, 1838, appointed a committee to inquire whether any improve-
ment could be made in the administration of the company's affairs.
The committee consisted of Samuel H. Huntington, who had had
much experience in the field. Job Allyn, who was one of the pro-
moters of the new Farmers' and Mechanics' National Bank, and
Junius S. Morgan, the eminent financier. Their report must have
been verbal and informal for there is no record of it. Two years
later there was effort to have the number of directors increased
from nine to thirteen, by charter amendment, but the unlucky
number was avoided. Business was being done and being done
effectively, so that in 1841 payment of dividends was resumed.

The new directors in this period were: Harvey Seymour (1837-
1838), Henry Waterman (1837-1838), Ezra White, Jr. (1838-1843),

[92]

John D. Russ (1838-1840), James Goodwin, Jr. (1840-1878),
John P. Brace (1841-1846) and George C. Collins (1841-1842).
They took the places of: Edwin D. Morgan (1837), Samuel Williams
(1837), George Putnam (1840) and Junius S. Morgan (1841).
As will be noticed, the Messrs. Seymour, who had served previously
from 1827 to 1835, Waterman and Russ held only short terms
during this period.

The total premium income for the decade 1830 to 1840 was
5939,824.41 or nearly four times as much as the total for the pre-
ceding twenty years, dating back to organization. The total for
the thirty years was $1,181,121.70. In the next decade there was
to be almost a doubling of this total.

By 1845 the annual income from premiums had swelled to
$177,000 as against $37,000 ten years before, in round numbers.
Then followed another series of heavy losses, met so bravely and
promptly that the effect was to increase the company's business
in every quarter. Another great fire in New York, July 19, 1845,
called for $69,691.30 from the Hartford. Less than a twelve-
month later, June 9, 1846, St. John's, N. F., was in flames, and
the payments made by the company there footed up $84,014.75.

Secretary Holies barely had reached Boston on his return from
St. John's when he was notified of a fire at Nantucket, July 14,
1846, and hastened thither to find that the company's loss was
$54,521.65. As before, the directors were courageous, and they
did not hesitate to put their names upon the company's paper.
Only two years had elapsed when came the Albany fire of August
17, 1848, involving a loss of $57,673.43 to the company, and then,
the following May 18, St. Louis's first great blaze which cost the
Hartford $58,676.83.

The company's capital was still but $150,000 and here were
conflagration losses of $324,577.96 in four years, to say nothing
of the ordinary losses. But the company did not flinch; indeed,
it was increasing its fame as a company which paid and paid squarely.
In this connection it may be well to quote the St. Louis figures which
attested to the people of the West the reliability of the "Old Hart-
ford" as it already was called:

Amount Amount

Name of Assured. Description of Property. Claimed. Paid.

D. H. Soutliwick, . . . . China Store, $8,500.00 ;j!8,372.50

Chas. H. Peck & others, . Buildings, 6,000.00 6,000.00

Willis L. Williams, . . . Office Furniture & Library 1,000.00 1,000.00

[93]

Amount
Claiued.

800 . 00
5,000 . 00

5,000.00
10,000.00

Name of Assured. Description of Property.

W. M. Shackford, Trustee, St. Louis Ins. Co. Stock,

B. Wilson & Co., .... Saddlery Hardware, . .

Wilson & Brothers, . . . Hardware,

Humphrey & Thacher. . Groceries

Wm. S. Moore, ... Stove Store 3,000.00

King & Co., Clothing, 5,639.62

John S. Thompson, . . Groceries, 5,000.00

John Gass, Music Store, 1,450.00

Chas. G. Ramsey, . Printing Press 2,000.00

B.H.Randolph, .... Flour, &c., 1,000.00

R. P. Perry & Co., . . . Hardware, 5,000.00

T.& G. W. Hequembourg, Goods & buildings, . . 180.00

Samuel Staats Taylor, .
Fisher & Burnett,

Furniture & Clothing,
Books, Stationery, &c.

90.71
97-33

Amount

Paid.

800 . 00

3,000.00

5,000.00

10,000.00

3,000.00

4,950.00

5,000.00

1 ,450 . 00
1,825.00

1 ,000 . 00

5,000.00

157.00

25.00
97-33

In the whole total there is a difference of only a trifle over ;$3,ooo
between the amounts originally claimed and the amounts paid by
the company after adjustments were effected.

Payment of dividends, it is hardly necessary to say, had been
suspended in 1846 and was not resumed till 1853. But every con-
tract obligation was faithfully discharged.

Gold had been discovered in California, the national territory
had been extended and despite exciting politics and the clash of
arms in Texas and Mexico, it had been a decade of prosperity
throughout the land. The premium income had been $2,172,902.16,
an increase of $1,233,078 or 131 per cent, the largest per cent of
any decade down to the present with one exception. Deducting
unpaid losses and claims, the net assets in 1850 cleared up $158,-
441.58, including about $87,000 in stock notes.

94

XIV

FIRST HALF CENTURY— WAR TIMES— LEE'S
AND LINCOLN'S POLICIES

WITH this remarkable record for the company which we
have just reviewed EUphalet Terry sent to the stock-
holders, at their annual meeting the second Thursday
of June, 1849, ^ letter declining re-election as director and presi-
dent because of the enfeebled condition of his health. Vice Presi-
dent Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., presided at the meeting. The loss
was keenly felt and the following preamble and resolution were
adopted :

Whereas, Eliphalet Terry, Esq., president of this Company, has inti-
mated his desire to withdraw from the duties of office on account of his
imperfect health ;

Resolved, that this meeting are deeply sensible of the able and faithful
manner in which, through a long course of years, he has attended to the
interests which were committed to his charge as a member of the board of
directors and president of this company; and that he will carry with him
in his retirement the affectionate remembrance of his former associates, and
their best wishes for his future health and happiness.

The following named gentlemen were then chosen directors
for the ensuing year: Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., Albert Day,
Junius S. Morgan, James Goodwin, Jr., Charles Boswell, Henry
Keney, Calvin Day, David F. Robinson and Job Allyn. The new
names here since our last previous listing are those of Charles Boswell
and Henry Keney who had been first elected in 1842, Calvin Day
who had come on the board in 1847 and David F. Robinson and
Job Allyn who were elected this year. Mr. Allyn had served on
the board from 1836 to 1842.

William T. Lee had been a member for the year 1846-7 and
Daniel Buck, Jr., for the year just closed, 1848-9. The latter was
to return to the board for the year 185 1-2. Mr. Robinson was to
remain but two years. Charles J. Russ was to be chosen in 1852
and in that same year John P. Brace was to be chosen for the second
time. No other changes were to be made during this decade.

[95]

The directors elected Mr. Huntington to succeed Mr. Terry
in the presidency. Mr. Huntington was born in Suffield, Conn.,
on October 28, 1795. The family removed to Hartford in 1813
where Mr. Huntington's father had his office as United States dis-
trict attorney, a position to which he had been appointed by President
Jefferson in 1806 and which he held until 1829. The younger
Huntington took up the publishers' business and later, in partner-
ship with his brother, Frank J. Huntington, published among other
works a series of Greek textbooks. Mr. Huntington retired from
the presidency in 1864 and died February 20, 1865.

In 1850 Charles Taylor was appointed to succeed James G.
Bolles as secretary. There was a movement that year to increase
the capital but no formal action was taken until 1853 when an
amendment to the charter was secured, as we have seen, doubling
the capital of ^150,000.

The company now was more systematically establishing itself
in the South and West and particularly in the West. Special agents
were being employed, first to adjust losses at distant points, inci-
dentally inspecting risks, authorizing rates and in a general way
rendering assistance to the local agents. Demas Adams in 18^2
was appointed the head of a department with headquarters at
Columbus, Ohio, to have general supervision of the western field.
He was succeeded in 1854 by David Alexander. The development
along this line was at one with the company's growth.

When the Civil War barred the southern territory, the head-
quarters of the Western Department were transferred to Chicago —
after George F. Bissell had been made general agent succeeding
General Agent Alexander. These men so thoroughly improved
the opportunities offered by the great Northwest that the loss of
the southern business was soon counterbalanced. We shall con-
sider their career further in the section of the company's story devoted
to the agency system.

All in all, despite the troublous times and the panic of 1857,
it was a successful decade from 1850 to i860. The company had
weathered severe gales and its reputation was proving to be a tre-
mendous asset. Withal it was attracting to itself men in the field
as well as at the home office who gloried in this reputation and
whose energy, reliability and fidelity were setting a standard for
those who should come after them. With its territory widening
so rapidly, the company was dependent largely upon their integrity

[96]

for its name as it was dependent upon their zeal for income worthy

of its enterprise.

The premiums for the decade amounted to $4,1546,534.87, or
$2,373,632 more than in the decade preceding. Dividend pay-
ments were resumed in 1853 but a surplus was always maintained
so that the treasury should be in shape to meet any such emergencies
as those of the early '40's.

In looking back over the first half century we find that the
average ratio of expense to premiums had been kept down to 15^.
Its ratio of loss in that length of time was raised from 17 per cent
(or nothing the first year) to 69 per cent. (For the last decade of
the full century the average has been 58.) During the first fifteen
years of the company's existence, the ratio of expense to premium
was II, and a fair surplus was maintained.

Bersveen 1854 and 1865, considerable increases in the capital
were made. The amendment of 1854, doubling the original capital
of $150,000, was unanimously adopted by the stockholders; sub-
scribers paid 60 per cent in cash or by one-year notes with interest,
the balance in stock notes — which notes soon disappeared as
prosperity continued. On July 14, 1857, with an amendment
permitting an increase to $1,000,000, the capital was raised to
$500,000 by means of the profits in the treasury, and then, in like
manner, to $1,000,000 in June, 1864.*

The last years of the first half century were years of heated
political debate, and the first years of the second half century were
the years of the Civil War. The business in the South had been
considerable prior to the war and the settlement of claims through-
out the period of strife, when communication with that section was
possible, were always conducted with eminent fairness.

The story of Charleston will serve to illustrate conditions of
more than passing interest in the history of fire insurance and in
the history of the nation. To go back a step : The great fire of
1838 extended over 144 acres and rendered a thousand Charleston
people homeless, yet good came of it since it awakened the people
to the need of fire insurance of the proper sort. The only com-
panies doing business in the state were purely local, outsiders being
debarred by law, and they proved wholly unequal to the task of

*By charter amendment in 1865 a capital of $3,000,000 was allowed, but there was to be no
increase till another slock dividend was declared in 1877, this time of $250,000. The last increase
was when the figures were made an even $2,000,000 after the San Francisco calamity.

[97]

indemnifying the Charleston sufferers. During the latter half of
1838 there were no fire insurance companies whatever operating
in the state of South Carolina.

One Charleston man was the envied of all the citizens. He had
a policy for $10,000 issued at the home office of the Hartford Fire
Insurance Company, covering his stock of crockery ware in his
store at the corner of King and Wentworth streets. His name was
H. P. Gleason and he had lived in Hartford previous to establishing
his business in Charleston. He knew the worth of true fire insur-
ance; so did others, after that conflagration.

The Legislature speedily removed the bars and the Hartford
was the first to enter the field, Secretary Bolles going there and
appointing Hayden, Gregg & Co., jewelers, as the company's repre-
sentatives. Business came in plentifully up to the time of the war.

After April, 1861, commercial and financial intercourse between
the North and the South was terminated, to all intents and pur-
poses. Fire insurance in particular was out of the question. War
conditions were likely to void policies in the South, adjustment of
claims would be difficult and drafts could not be sent through the
lines. One check of the Hartford that was sent before the pro-
hibition was complete was long utilized as currency and when
finally redeemed was stained, worn and covered with endorsements
— but still good. The details as to that historic check are thus
given in a letter from T. W. Ventulett of Albany, Ga. :

One of the most unique incidents of the many that grew out of the
compHcations involved in the derangements caused by the late Civil War,
was the history of a check sent by the 'Great and Good Hartford Fire Insur-
ance Company' of Hartford, Conn., to cover a loss in the city of Albany, Ga.
James L.-Byington owner and proprietor of the hotel in that center of cul-
ture, refinement and wealth, placed a risk on his property with Captain John
A. Davis, the agent of the Hartford in Albany, Ga., in the year of i86o
for ;^8oo. The property was burned and the proof of loss was made out
and hurried to the home office just before hostilities began. The check to
cover the loss, duly signed by the officers of the company, came through in
the last mail before communications were interrupted between the North
and South, and was promptly delivered to the assured.

Mr. Byington found it impossible to get the check cashed, as it would
not be safely sent through for returns, and as it represented a large part of
his means, he resorted to trading, using the check as collateral, securing
loans on it. So often was it hypothecated that it was recognized as a legal
tender among the moneyed men of the community. Its value, being payable

[98] .

CHARLES E. CHASE

P R E S 1 D K N T

in gold, rapidly increased with the waning fortunes of the Confederacy.
It proved an asset of great value to him on which he laid the foundation of
a competency. At the close of the war the check was forwarded for collec-
tion and paid very promptly. This incident was frequently referred to by
Captain Davis, who was agent for the Hartford for about fifty years.

December 13, 1861, Charleston was visited again by fire. The
cathedral, market and the buildings on Hayne, King and Meeting
streets were among those destroyed. Some of this property was
covered by policies in the Hartford and as soon as the declaration
of peace would admit, the claims were paid in full.

An incident in connection with these policies, related by Agent
A. H. Hayden, is of historic value. Mr. Hayden had told the
anxious policyholders that there was no use in sending their claims
to Hartford. "Make out your proofs of loss," said he; "I will
take care of them and you will get your money." Under the con-
ditions, it must have been hard for the southerners to believe this,
but such was their faith in the "Old Hartford," when all other
faith in the North had been abandoned, that they gave the papers
to Mr. Hayden.

Putting them with his own private papers, Mr. Hayden carried
them into the country. He consulted with a kindly planter
as to the best means of preserving the proofs upon the safety of
which his own honor as well as that of the company depended.
The planter, in the middle of the night, took the papers along with
other valuables out into a large field and, placing all in a keg, buried
them. The next day the negroes plowed the field, thus obliterating
all traces of the hiding place which was indicated only by marks
on trees in a neighboring field.

There the documents remained until the end of the war when
they were dug up and sent to Hartford where they were promptly
honored and the claimants received in full the amounts to which
they could have urged no legal claim. Mr. Hayden continued as
agent for many years.

Just before the war General Robert E. Lee carried ;$5,8oo
insurance on the famous Arlington property, across the river from
Washington. The rate was 40 cents per $100 a year for the house
and 80 cents for the barn. The policy was written October 17,
1859, and the following is General Lee's endorsed description of
the historic premises, as it appears over his signature in the appli-
cation carefully preserved at the home office :

APPLICATION OF ROBERT E. LEE

iJQitfori) live 3usuianr«v'(!LompanD, of Ifjaitforti. Olonn.

iij 'li-criflionslmtil.t bP givfiic' till.- l!ijililinsc!.iilulom4tlinrir<jpVrt>-. usji liisunift'^v i> KiiiiWon tiii-'H'ii'lii>^.

:,^4-^ay;

vlp|)iicoliou' ill

IV., liiM.iiuu'e, oi.'»">i I'ss or uAinage liy lir,. Ly -.l.c HAETTORD FIRE INSTOANCE COMPANY, ,„ ,i„_
snin ?f-;^^;/^-^ '^<£a-i-<M<^-^ <0;Sii4!5%<-»< «<^«:^;<L--DolUrs om ihi' |M>,|„.((y spfc-iriml ■ il,i vahio of ll..
jtroijeily liciiig osuniuicil by Llie Appiioant.

o„ ^^^>^y:e,-C^'Ctt^'',,r^i^.( j:<^^' _ s j:^*^*^-.-

■8.!?<fi^<^«^^

vr?.^ <■.._

8^<r/-^ s X^

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<l

^^oi.il? H.iW Ui-jtij sill-: .;r— /^J-*^ <~ ' t.-^ ff / . t - >>

V. Ijen bujll * VVhirh p
oi'cupicJ by A

Wm.u*— Ate the diSisiou. a / / Z* ^ , C

wall> f.f brick? An- tl.^v;! .? - ^_ .^-^ .yc ' ^-/ ■, ' ' ^^' V v^ -

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..-.v,.<, <-

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Are the slnvijs anaTtpptir^iius .t .- ,-. ,

lor Ubing tire projierlj seen- ,t,'

ii.-d. Mid W.I! jou ijnpgO (J) , . t^

lu-ciutieiiiso ? . , ^ ,^; ^-^

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■ ho'A ii(L- allies dtapbwd ol\'

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And Low I. .-11

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tiiTii (Le tito(i'.ri), -111
«hat iiir.c.j .■ Il.i:, ;■... '

And I.. .^1..
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yv'

At that time, threats were loud and bitter and yet we can see
by this bit of precious evidence that the peril was not so great, in
the minds of the Hartford men, that this could be considered an
especially hazardous risk. Nor did" it prove to be, though there
were times during the next few years when the property was in great
danger.

Side by side with this policy of General Lee's is "No. 253"
(Western Department) on the property of Abraham Lincoln in
Springfield, 111. It is dated February 8, 1861, less than two months
after South Carolina had passed the "ordinance of secession" and
a few days after six other states had followed South Carolina's lead.
Lincoln was at home anxiously watching the course of events and
thoughtfully preparing that inaugural address to be delivered the
next month and to go down in history as one of the most important
ever written by a President of the United States. Removing his
family to Washington, he had decided to rent his house, as evidenced
by the policy, and to protect himself against loss of it. The descrip-
tion of the property in the document preserved is meager. With
a charge of $24, the amount of the insurance is $3,200. Of this
$3,000 is on the two-story "frame house to rent," $75 on the carriage
house and $125 on a frame wood house and outhouse.

[ 103 ]

XV

PRESIDENT GEORGE L. CHASE— THE GREAT
CONFLAGRATIONS

ON the retirement of President Huntington in 1864, Timothy
C. Allyn was elected president. He was the son of Job
Allyn, one of the founders and original directors, and had
been secretary from August 5, 1858, to the time of his election,
June 2, 1864. He had succeeded Caleb B. Bowers as secretary,
the latter having served since 1853. In the six months between the
date of Secretary Taylor's retirement in 1852 and the beginning
of Secretary Bowers's term, A. F. Wilmarth had served. He later
was vice president of the Home Insurance Company of New York
and Mr. Bowers became president of the City Insurance Company
and of the Putnam Insurance Company, both of Hartford.

A large fire at Augusta, Me., on September 16, 1865, inaugurated
another series of heavy losses, almost within a year's time. The
company's loss in Augusta was ^57,022.16. On July 4, 1866, the
great fire in Portland, Me., called for $151,288.31, and the following
Christmas Eve there was a loss of $555077.55 by the fire in Vicks-
burg, Miss., making a total of $263,388.02. Yet so well was the
company prepared this time that it settled every claim readily and
was able to add over $200,000 to its assets from the business in
1866. Its premium income between i860 and 1870 showed a gain
of $6,493,845.90, with a total of $11,040,380.77. This was a gain
of 143 per cent.

President Allyn, after an incumbency of only three years, resigned
and going to New York formed a partnership there with Ezra White,
the company's local agent. The firm also had charge of the Ameri-
can branch of the North British and Mercantile Insurance Com-
pany.

For the first time then, with a company of nation-wide interests,
the directors went beyond the borders of the city and the state for
their executive head. George Lewis Chase had attracted attention
by the record he had established, particularly through the preceding
four years as assistant general agent in the Western Department.

[ 104 ]

His services there had so warmly commended him to General Agent
George F. Bissell that, when he was consulted, Mr. Bissell earnestly
proposed him for the presidency, to which office he was elected
June 6, 1867.

In his administration of forty-one years — an administration
continuing until his death and longer than that of any othtr fire
insurance president in the United States — the Hartford Fire Insur-
ance Company was to enjoy a marvelous development, to attain
foremost rank among institutions of its kind and to make its name
stand for all that was solid and enduring. The foundations well
laid, Mr. Chase was the master builder to go on with the great
structure. A trained underwriter from his early youth, he was
familiar with every detail in the field. As president, he not only
directed, but he originated ideas, methods and facilities in the various
branches of the business, and worked with the tireless energy which
characterized him in everything in which he took an interest^ —
an inspiration to other minds and a constant example in making
every minute count. He chose men with unerring judgment and
knew how to bring out the best that was within them for the com-
pany. He was bold yet conservative, and by courage, skill and zeal
in proper proportions carried great undertakings through to success.

Mr. Chase was born in Millbury, Worcester County, Mass.,
January 13, 1828, the son of Paul Cushing Chase. His first Ameri-
can ancestor was Aquilla Chase, a native of Cornwall, England,
who settled in Hampton, Mass., in 1640. The moment Mr. Chase
was through with his studies in Millbury Academy, he entered upon
his career as an underwriter. He was then only 19 years old. His
initial experience was as local agent in Millbury for the Farmers'
Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Georgetown, Mass. In a
short time he was elected a member of the board of directors and
as canvasser was assigned to the territory of southern Massachusetts
and eastern Connecticut. Before long four companies doing busi-
ness on the mutual plan were represented by his agency; one of
them, the Holyoke Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Holyoke,
Mass., is still flourishing today.

Mr. Chase's first year won him such prestige that he was offered
the responsible position of traveling agent for the People's Insur-
ance Company of Worcester, Mass. He remained with that com-
pany from 1848 to 1852. In the latter year, having accepted appoint-
ment as assistant superintendent of the Central Ohio Railway

[ >05 ]

Company, he turned aside from insurance and went West for his
new work. There again his abihty, forcefulness and faculty for
organizing won him advancement and he soon was promoted to
be general superintendent. He was among those who formed the
first Association of Railroad Superintendents, at a meeting held
in Columbus, Ohio, in 1853.

But fire insurance was his calling and to it he returned in i860
when .he accepted the western agency of the New England Fire
and Marine Insurance Company of Hartford. It was while he
was acting in this capacity that General Agent Bissell of the Western
Department of the Hartford Fire recognized his worth and he was
secured for assistant general agent at Chicago. From this position
to the presidency was a promotion which could have been won
only by the most noteworthy merit.

On December 31, 1867, follovv'ing Mr. Chase's election to the
presidency, the company's net surplus was ^26,744. Its assets
were ;$2,026,220. Its capital was $1,000,000, reinsurance reserve
;^83i,975 and total liabilities $1,999,476. The year's total income
was $1,673,582 of which $1,559,040 was from premiums.

The year of Mr. Chase's death, the net surplus was $5,061,592.
The capital was $2,000,000, reinsurance reserve $12,022,474 and
total liabilities $13,373,224. The year's total income was $14,810,-
581 of which $14,071,456 was from premiums.

Mr. Chase was elected president of the National Board of Fire
Underwriters in 1876 and from then to the time of his death served
as chairman of the important committee on legislation and taxation.
He also was connected with several of Hartford's leading financial
institutions, being trustee and vice president of the Society for
Savings, trustee of the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit Com-
pany, director in the American National Bank and a member of
the Board of Trade. In planning the office building two years
after he was elected he played a particularly active part. He was
the first to introduce the use of the telephone in local business offices
and the first to employ stenographers and typewriters. The esteem
in which he was held by his co-workers was evidenced on the twenty-
fifth anniversary of his becoming president, in 1892, when he was
given a silver loving cup, and again in 1898, when he had arrived
at the age of 70, by the gift from the general and special agents of
a Jurgensen watch. He died January 7, 1908, six days before his
eightieth anniversary.

[ 106 ]

True to the character and principles of the company long since
established, President Chase was pushing the agency work vigor-
ously and improving to the utmost the advantage the company
possessed of being able to secure good men, when came the great
test of the Chicago fire. Well was it then that the company's
builders had laid firm foundations and that the prestige was un-
shakable. On that night of October 8 and the day of the 9th, 1871,
property to the amount of ^150,000,000 was swept out of existence
by the flames. As in 1835 in New York and as on subsequent
occasions of great calamity, there was no hesitation although the
disaster seemed almost beyond the power of finite comprehension.

The Hartford Fire Insurance Company did not flinch. With
early knowledge that its losses were almost double the amount of
its capital and with the news that a large number of the other com-
panies (ultimately forty-five) were forced to the wall, the Hartford
immediately gave printed notice to its agents that its losses would
be "approximately one and three-fourths millions of dollars" but
that "vast as is this sum, it will be bravely met and honorably paid."
The actual losses exceeded the estimate and within four months,
mostly within ninety days, the company had paid claims amounting
to $1,933,562.04. And it paid them without a single instance of
litigation, true to the standard of 1835, to the standard we might
say of 1 8 10 or from the very beginning.

Eager outsiders who looked to see the company sacrifice some
of its splendid securities were disappointed. The Hartford Bank
was ready with all the assistance within its power and the Connecti-
cut Mutual Life Insurance Company granted a large loan. The
claims paid, there was only a little over a million dollars remaining
in the treasury, less than was called for in the reinsurance fund.
The directors were undaunted. The capital was cut in half
and immediately was restored to $1,000,000 by fresh subscrip-
tions. Rights of stockholders to subscribe commanded a premium
of $85 a share, attest of the faith in the company's recuperative
power.

And while men of courage and indomitable will in the home
oflRce city were mastering the unprecedented evil, under the leader-
ship of President Chase, men no less courageous and indefatigable
were upholding the company's standard in the afllicted city. His-
tory would be incomplete without a word for them. The horror
of those days of the fire and the weeks that followed it is diflicult

[ 107 J

to picture. The Chicago Evening Journal at i o'clock the after-
noon of October g issued a single-sheet extra from a job press,
announcing: "Chicago is burning! Up to this hour of writing
the best part of the city is already in ashes! An area between six
and seven miles in length and nearly a mile in width, embracing
the great business part of the city, has been burned over and now
lies a mass of smoldering ruins!" The leading hotels, public build-
ings, banks, newspaper offices, places of amusement, business
blocks and most of the railroad stations and churches were gone.
The gas works were destroyed and what added mightily to the
woe was the loss of the city water works, rendering the fire apparatus
useless.

The loss at that hour was estimated at "hundreds of millions
of dollars." The fire had been started at 9 o'clock the night before
(Sunday) when a cow had kicked over a lamp in a stable, and it
was to burn the better part of another day. The Journal said :
"Never in the history of the world has such a scene of extended,
terrible and complete destruction by conflagration been recorded ;
and never has a more frightful scene of panic, distress and horror
been witnessed among a helpless, sorrowing, suffering population."
Telegrams summoned aid from St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee
and nearer cities.

General Agent George F. Bissell of the Western Department
was the first fire insurance manager to open an office in the city
after the fire. A man held in highest esteem throughout the com-
munity, whose word was as good as a bond, his calm assurance
in the hour of anguish and terror was solace incalculable. He
set about adjusting and settling losses with a promptness that made
the first rift in the cloud of despair which had settled over homeless
people. With his assistants he was at work day and night.

In an appreciative article in one of the leading insurance maga-
zines at the time of his death was this paragraph: "The final test
of his endurance and capacity came when his company lost two
million dollars in two days in the Chicago fire. One of the first
buildings to spring out of the ashes was the one he erected for his
office on LaSalle street. The losses were adjusted correctly and
promptly and paid within the regular time limit — the best piece
of insurance adjustment and payment ever executed in this country.
He flung his Hartford flag to the breeze, with not a spot nor stain
from the flames upon it."

[ 108 ]

RICHARD M. BISSELL

VICE PRESIDENT
UNDEKWRITING MANAGER

In the rush of new business coming in for his compiiny, Mr.
Bissell no doubt found a large part of his reward for his superhuman
efforts in the days immediately following the conflagration.

Less than a year later, November 9, 1872, the Boston fire began
and burned for thirty-six hours, destroying $80,000,000 worth of
property, which meant among other things the collapse of twenty-
six more fire insurance companies. But the Hartford was staunch
— fire-tested. It met its losses of $485,315.71 out of its current
receipts and again found its new business enormously increased.
Writing of the company's record on this occasion and voicing the
sentiments of a grateful community, the Boston Journal said: "All
adjusted claims were paid at sight, without discount or delay. Such
a record is its own argument for integrity, ability and determina-
tion." And then the paper summed up the whole matter, for Boston
or any other city, with this: "A policy in the Hartford Fire is as
good as a gold bond."

The Baltimore fire of February 7, 1904, was another of the
greatest conflagrations of modern times, emphasizing anew the
lessons that had been taught in fire insurance, entailing work upon
agents and adjusters which those at a distance scarcely can realize
and yet adding to the prestige of a company like the Hartford.
Its losses were $1,213,843, and it is superfluous to say that they
were paid promptly.

And the Baltimore fire was only one of what were, each in
themselves, serious disasters at the beginning of the twentieth
century. The company's loss by the fire in Ottawa, Ont., April
26, 1900, had been $177,785. The Jacksonville fire of May 3,
1901, was the most serious up to that time since the Boston fire
and the company's loss by it ($215,900) had been nearly half as
great as that in Boston. Then had followed the Paterson (N. J.)
fire of February 9, 1902, with losses of $106,643 t° ^^^ company;
and the year of the Baltimore fire, the company had to pay claims
amounting to $160,952 in Toronto, Ont., for the fire of April 19

(1904)-

Even for those inured by such misfortunes as these, the earth-
quake and fire in San Francisco, in mid-April, 1906, was a blow
at first incomprehensible. What with great buildings thrown
down, tracks torn up and streets and water pipes disrupted by the
earthquake, and the whole wide mass swept by roaring flames,
what with the distracted inhabitants driven out of one place of

[in ]

refuge after another and many of them to subsist for weeks in mili-
tary camps on the charity of the world, the scenes never can be
realized by any who did not witness them. In insurance offices
the world over the news was appalling since for many years San
Francisco had proved a fertile field for them. The total losses
were put at $350,000,000, one half of which fell upon the insurance
companies. How much of the loss was due to earthquake and
how much to fire was a question long discussed by certain of the
companies in their efforts to save themselves from what to not a
few was the inevitable doom. Newspapers flamed with wrath
and the general desperation and hopelessness were revealed in a
great public clamor.

But can there be any question about the course the Hartford
was pursuing ? Heroic is the only word that describes it and yet
the management deems that word not fitting, so much a matter
of course does it consider the discharge of duty.

Palache & Hewitt were general agents in charge of the Pacific
Department at the time. As soon as the ruins had cooled, imminent
peril from shattered buildings had been somewhat lessened and
the federal soldiers had begun to enforce order, the insurance men
were at work, first with a study of the problem as a whole, separately
and together, and then in long and painful detail. The Hartford's
general agency offices were established at Oakland.

P. J. Hobbs, chief adjuster, who was detailed to take general
charge of the work of adjustment and payment of losses, which
already had been in progress for a month or more, has written a
graphic account of the experiences of the agents and adjusters.
It is a story of human triumph which deserves to be handed down
in history. He tells how he reached San Francisco at midnight,
Sunday, June 17. All the insurance offices, with their records,
had been destroyed. Early Monday morning rude headquarters
were established in the burned district and the crowd of claimants
made their appearance as soon as the doors were open, — a crowd
which was not to grow less for many days thereafter.

The great question was how to care for each one. In all there
was an army of 10,000, including claimants, wives and attorneys,
who must be seen. Imagine how long it would take them to pass
a given point if marching in lines extending from curb to curb —
and "then remember that we must meet each one of them," writes
Mr. Hobbs, "and adjust each loss upon its individual merit." In

[ 112]

all 6,o«o policies had been presented and 3,000 proofs of loss. The
proofs in particular must receive prompt attention. When one
was filed, the person filing it was told that he would receive a letter
as soon as the new office could be arranged systematically. The
letter, which was registered, set a definite date for adjustment and
also contained the assurance that the appointment would be kept.
In this way order was brought out of chaos.

All loss claims were classified. In the first class were the claims
where the company was alone; in the second class, where the com-
pany was with not more than five other companies, and the third,
where there were six other companies or more — which last named
class was reserved for committee adjustment. Mr. Hobbs says :

"We had not only a larger amount of loss than any other com-
pany but we had greatly the largest number of losses where we
alone were interested."

Two automobiles and three expert builders were employed to
expedite the work of adjusting. First attention was given to the
first class as representing the most needy. By July i they had
begun to care for two claimants every five minutes, on an average.
The fact soon was given out that they were adjusting fifty or sixty
claims a day. Arrangement was made with nearby banks to pay
all drafts and ere long sixty or eighty drafts a day were being passed
over the counter. "Our 'machine' was the greatest and the best
that any company had ever supplied," says Mr. Hobbs. "The
adjusters were artists and all were tireless workers. A record was
made in the rapid execution of the work that certainly never has
been equalled."

There was wrangling among certain of the companies in trying
to arrange a uniform basis of settlement. Some favored payment
of loss by attempting to take an arbitrary percentage off^ from each
adjusted claim. Mr. Hobbs says: "We found it unsafe to accept
such companies' adjustments, and would always insist upon our
own adjusters taking part in the adjustment." The press was
bitterly hostile from the outset and there were calamity howlers
on every hand. Attempts to defraud were many and varied.

Within sixty days after the headquarters had been established,
six and a half million dollars had been paid out and on August 21
the adjusters except Purcell, King and Warfield left. Of the 560
claims still unsettled, 400 were for committee adjustment.

So far as the Hartford was concerned the tone of the press had

[113] ■

changed completely. The San Francisco Chronicle in its issue
of September 25 said: "The Hartford Fire is one of the companies
spoken of very highly in the matter of adjustments. It had such
a strong force of capable men to handle claims that although its
losses were larger than those of any other company, it disposed
of its obligations promptly." General Agent Palache commented
thus on this utterance: "It is needless to say that this was purely
voluntary on the part of the paper."

Mr. Hobbs in his paper adds something of special interest as
coming from a man on the firing-line: "The Hartford in its history
has been an exponent of honesty, always sincere, straightforward
and truthful, and the exponent of integrity in the equitable fulfill-
ment of its contract obligations. This position has been main-
tained in its selection of men endowed with the same characteristics
and educated in its own school. * * * I believe a great lesson of
conflagration adjustments is learned by studying the Hartford
methods. — We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we
hold toward them. * * * The Hartford's record at San Francisco
will add brilliancy to its history and the milestones already passed —
New York, Chicago, Boston, Portland and Baltimore."

J. J. Purcell also has written a paper that is illuminating. He
cites many illustrations of the value of the co-insurance clause and
says: "I wish to say to you producers of the business that the San
Francisco disaster developed the true metal of every fire insurance
company, and that of the company you represent proved pure gold."

The Hartford's losses footed up ;^7,oi 1,636. Notwithstanding
the fact that the fire would leave the company without one dollar
of capital or surplus, the directors promptly voted to recommend
that the capital be raised at once from ^1,250,000 to fc,ooo,ooo
by issuing ^750,000 new stock at a premium of %oo a share. The
recommendation was adopted, the additional stock was taken up
and every obligation was discharged faithfully and in good season.

It is to be noted that most of the new issue was subscribed
for by the stockholders of record, strong evidence of their recogni-
tion of the great value of the agency plant.

At this time of trial, despite the financial condition of the Hart-
ford, not an agent had the slightest doubt of the ability of the com-
pany to maintain its position, and their loyalty to the company
was demonstrated by the renewal of old business and also by a
large increase in premium income.

[ 114 ]

1

One word in emphasis of a point in connection with these widely
distributed catastrophes : Long-time immunity of a state, a city
or an individual cannot be taken as a reason for reducing rates in
such cases. If it were not for those who do not suffer loss, the
average rate would have to be much higher. That average now,
for all classes, is only a little over i per cent. Thus property insured
at that rate might not call for a cent of indemnity and yet, burning
in its one hundredth year, would cost all that had been paid in
premiums and the companies also would be minus its proportionate
share of the century's expenses. Fire insurance distributes the
burden entailed by fire loss.

What is true of persons is true of communities. Immuiiity
cannot be eternal. For thirty-five years previous to the Chicago
fire, the Hartford's business in Illinois had contributed well to the
fund in which the other states, communities and individuals were
interested. For thirty years thereafter the company's business
in that state was exceptionally profitable, and yet it was not until
about 1900 that the balance for the state's business was once more
in favor of the company; the Chicago fire had taken all the profit
from 1837 to 1900. In San Francisco the Hartford alone paid
nearly 75 per cent of the aggregate of all the annual premiums of
California. A large safety fund can be maintained only by many low
premiums, kept low by competition if by nothing else, and no man or
community can know when aid from that fund will be sadly needed.

With a net surplus of ^3,281,450 and a premium income of
i?l4,43i,828, the year 1907 brought fulfillment of the most sanguine
prophecies of the Hartford's friends. And yet, with all its happi-
ness, the company was to be called upon to grieve deeply at the
end of that year and the beginning of the next. For it was to lose
two of its chief officials. Secretary Philander C. Royce died sud-
denly in New York on December i and President George L. Chase
followed him on January 7. The story of Mr. Chase's life already
has been given and it is written into the company's history; the
salient points in the career of the secretary so much beloved by
men who still are with the company should here be recorded.

Mr. Royce was a native of Illinois, having been born in Plain-
field in 1838. His father and mother hailed from Connecticut and
Massachusetts respectively. The father located in what is now
Plainfield, in 1834, and married the missionary teacher from New-
England three years later. Their son was named after the first

[ ''Si

bishop of Illinois, who baptized him. After graduating from Knox
College in i860, the young man chose school teaching for his voca-
tion and in the course of a short time he was superintendent of
schools and principal of the high school at Joliet, 111. This was
rapid advancement and yet Mr. Royce felt that the calling did not
have in it for him the possibilities he desired.

Thus within six years of graduation from college, he resigned
his position as teacher to accept a small established insurance
agency. That was in 1866 and, as we all know now, he had found
the life work for which he was wonderfully well adapted. The
companies he represented at first were the Liverpool and London
and Globe, the Phenix Fire Insurance Company of Brooklyn, N. Y.,
the International Insurance Company of New York, and the Mer-
chants' Insurance Company of Chicago. After a year he accepted
appointment as special agent for the Merchants' Insurance Com-
pany. Then, having disposed of his interest in the local agency
business, he removed to Chicago, in February, 1871. He was still
busy with the affairs of the Merchants' when General Manager
Bissell recognized in him qualities which would count for the Hart-
ford and, accepting Mr. Bissell's offer, Mr. Royce became a member
of the force of the Western Department on May i, 1872. With
better opportunities, always well improved, his ability attracted
wider attention. In August, 1876, he was selected to be secretary
for the Girard Fire and Marine Insurance Company of Philadelphia
and removed to that city.

But on May i, 1881, he was back again with the Hartford Fire
Insurance Company and with the city of Hartford as his home, for
he had received with pleasure the appointment as assistant secre-
tary. Five years later he succeeded to the secretaryship and for
twenty-one years thereafter was closely identified with the progress
we have been noting. His splendid physique, his manly bearing
and his strongly molded features cannot be forgotten, nor yet the
work he did and above all his manner of doing it.

He was stricken while apparently in the full vigor of life. His
work had been well kept up. The minutes of the last directors'
meeting had been written into the book, and it is a noteworthy fact
that the next minutes, consisting chiefly of the feeling memorial
drawn up concerning the loss of so valued an officer, just completed
the second volume of directors' records.

And the new volume was to begin with a new administration.

[ i'6]

XVI
OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE COMPANY

THE"^day of President George L. Chase's death, January 7,
1908, was the day before that set for the regular annual
meeting. From the minutes spread upon the records of
the stockholders at that time — in the historic old record book, —
we get his associates' estimate of their chief executive's character
and also a conservative statement of the company's growth and of
the position it had come to occupy at this the closing period of the
century of service. The memorial minutes in full are as follows :

George L. Chase was elected director and president of the Hartford
Fire Insurance Company on the 6th day of June, 1867. Mr. Chase was
identified with the company for almost forty-five years and was president
of the company for more than forty years. During the first four years of
his connection with the company he became assistant western agent at
Chicago. Under his guidance as president the company made great progress
and developed from a comparatively small institution to one of the leading
underwriting organizations in the country. His record as an underwriter
speaks for itself in the history of the company which he served and loved.

Mr. Chase was remarkably endowed. He possessed to a very unusual
degree the ability to choose men, — men whose character and talents fitted
them for the particular branch of work for which he needed their services.
Himself a man of enthusiasm and untiring energy, he was able to inspire
others with similar qualities. Moreover, he had the great gift of under-
standing and managing men in such a way as to get from them the best
work of which they were capable and at the same time secure their unstinted
devotion, loyalty and affection both for the company and for himself as
their leader. It can be said without exaggeration that no executive officer
of an insurance company ever built up a more loyal, devoted or capable
staff than that which President Chase assembled throughout the country in
the service of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company.

Mr. Chase possessed other talents and abilities which fitted him for
leadership. He was gifted with mental power of the sort which seizes upon
the essential points in problems under consideration. He was able to form
conclusions and reach decisions in remarkably short time. Furthermore,
he possessed great energy, indomitable tenacity of purpose and a sanguine

[ "7]

temperament. His courage and hopefulness were contagious and enabled
those associated with him to accomplish results beyond their expectations.

Mr. Chase to the last was a remarkably progressive man. A keen
observer of men and things, he was — though a man of the strongest con-
victions — always open-minded to new truths and while cherishing the old
was not slow to adopt new methods which in his judgment were likely to
give better results. Mr. Chase believed thoroughly in the power and effi-
ciency of perfect organization and was himself a great organizer. It was his
theory and practice to delegate to staff and department managers all details
which did not demand his personal attention, thus giving himself oppor-
tunity to consider those larger matters which were vital to the company's
progress.

Mr. Chase firmly believed in the wisdom and efficacy of honorable
methods. He adopted for himself and for the company as a cardinal prin-
ciple the practice of fair and straightforward dealings with policyholders,
with agents and with other companies, and no small part of the high repu-
tation and popularity of the company is due to this settled policy. Much
of the hig-h esteem in which Mr. Chase was held amone underwriters was
due to his active, helpful and often conspicuous labors and accomplishments
in connection with the various associations of underwriters throughout the
country. He was always willing to spend himself freely in behalf of any
movement looking toward the betterment of the fire insurance community
as a whole and was widely recognized as being in the front rank of those
who not only advocate wise and fair rules for the governance of underwriting
practices but by their daily conduct endeavor to maintain the observance of
such rules. His services in such matters have been widely recognized and
he was frequently honored by the highest offices in the gift of the various
organizations referred to above.

These were the qualities which made him a brilliant leader and a
beloved and honored executive.

In addition, he was himself devoted utterly to the progress and success
of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He delighted in its growth.
His work and pleasure were combined in its service. This enthusiastic
interest in his work, together with the qualities herein enumerated, resulted
in a most remarkable and exceptional career and made him one of the most
important factors in the history of fire underwriting in this country

Mr. Chase was succeeded in office by his son, Charles Edw^ard
Chase, who was elected January i6, 1908. The new president was
born in Dubuque, la., March 29, 1857, and came to Hartford with
his parents on his father's election to the presidency in 1867. Grad-
uated at the Hartford Public High School in 1876, he began his fire
insurance career the next year, at the age of 20, in the local agency

[ "8 ]

J. W. G. COFRAN

VICE PRESIDENT

of the Hartford where he continued until he entered the home
ofHce in 1880. He applied himself with diligence to the business
and improved every opportunity to acquaint himself thoroughly
with the minor details. On February i, 1894, he was elected
second assistant secretary. He was promoted to be assistant secre-
tary, January 8, 1897. Thoughtful, serene at all times and emi-
nently capable in the discharge of his duties in the subordinate
positions, he was deemed well qualified to share in the responsi-
bilities of the office of the chief executive and he was chosen first
vice president January i, 1903.

"Insurance men are born, not made," it is sometimes said.
Mr. Chase was both born and made. While it was natural that
the always contagious enthusiasm of the father should have affected
his own family, and that his only son should have imbibed a good
portion of it, it already has been made apparent by his deeds that
the son had a native tendency toward the business and that he
would have gained preeminence in it whatever his antecedents.

The new president holds other positions of responsibility which
attest the appreciation of his worth on the part of the local financial
world. He is a director in the Hartford National Bank, the Con-
necticut Trust and Safe Deposit Company, the Connecticut Mutual
Life Insurance Company and the Society for Savings, and, always
interested in public affairs, he has served in both boards of the city
government and is a member of the Hartford Board of Trade.

President Chase, the elder, though retaining a firm grasp on
the business to almost the very last, had sought to divide some of
the multiplied burdens of his office in his advancing years and,
accordingly, the vice presidents elected in 1903 were not honorary
or for service in the directors' meetings only, but they were to be
in the office and to take their share in the day's duties which were
now still more departmentized and systematized. To Mr. Chase
it was like rounding out his life work, and that his son was there
to aid him intensified his pleasure.

Richard Mervin Bissell of Chicago was elected second vice
president at that January meeting in 1903. Son of George F.
Bissell whose name is so closely associated with the development of
the Western Department, he was born in Chicago June 8, 1862.
On his father's side, he was descended from old New England
families (the Bissells and the Wilsons) who had played a prominent
part in times of war and in times of peace, from the earliest days

[ 121 ]

down. His mother, Jerusha Woodbridge, was a lineal descendant
of the Rev. John Woodbridge who long had been rector of the
parish of Stanton, Wiltshire, England, at the time of his death in
1637. His son, the Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, came to this
country and for a time was rector of the parish in the historic town
of Windsor near Hartford. Deacon Deodatus Woodbridge, father
of Mr. Bissell's mother, lived in East Hartford. His father, Deo-
datus, was brother of the father of the Hon. Ward Woodbridge whom
we have seen as one of the original subscribers to the stock of the
Hartford and as one of the first board of directors. The early
home of George F. Bissell was in Manchester, close by East Hart-
ford, and it was hither he returned from the West for his bride in

^855- . . . . ,

Both vice presidents, then, were born into the busmess and

both were sons of New England men who had carried the good

work into the western field.

After receiving the degree of A. B. at Yale in the class of '83,
Mr. Bissell began at the bottom of the fire insurance ladder, in the
agency of Moore & Janes of Chicago. Then entering the office of
the Western Department, he filled subordinate positions until he
was appointed special agent and, with his new duties, gained
further knowledge of the all-important field work. His next service
was in the department office with the supervision of the special
hazards and large city business. In August, 1895, he was made
second assistant general agent, and the following June i he was
appointed associate general agent with J. W. G. Cofran for the
Western Department, which position he was holding when he was
honored with the vice presidency. In 1909 he was given the duties of
the newly created office of underwriting manager in addition to
those of full vice president which he had discharged since Mr.
Chase's promotion. Interested with other insurance men in estab-
lishing the course of insurance at Yale University, he is one ot the
lecturers there.

Vice President Bissell was president of the Merchants' Club
and a member of the Commercial, Literary, University and Union
League clubs of Chicago. In Hartford he is a member of the lead-
ing clubs and is a director in the American National Bank, the
Connecticut General Life Insurance Company and the Fidelity
Trust Company. Standing for progress in the methods and char-
acter of the fire insurance business, and giving all his great energy

[ 122 ]

to the work, he has won place among the first in American under-
writing today.

John W. G. Cofran of Chicago was elected vice president
December i, 1909. He also is of New England stock. He was
born in Goshen, N. H., June 13, 1855. After his father's death he
continued the farm work alone for some time and then, finding
little in its prospects to satisfy his ambition, he started for the
Pacific coast. Hardly more than a mere lad, he had only his grit
and 515 in cash as his assets when he found employment as office
boy in the San Francisco office of the Commercial Insurance Com-
pany of California. This was in 1874. In 1879 he opened a
department for the Commercial Insurance Company in Portland,
Ore., having Oregon, Washington and Idaho for his territory.

In 1 88 1 the Hartford had pushed its way into Oregon and Mr.
Cofran accepted a position with it, having the same territory but
with British Columbia added. He reported to the Pacific Depart-
ment with headquarters in San Francisco. A. P. Flint, the general
agent there, died in December, 1885. Thereupon Mr. Cofran was
made general agent in San Francisco, and with H. K. Belden, who
had been a California special agent, the firm of Belden & Cofran
was formed, general agents for the Pacific Coast and the Hawaiian
Islands. The Northwestern Department, in Oregon, was merged
with that in San Francisco.

On the death in 1895 of General Agent George F. Bissell, Mr.
Cofran was transferred to Chicago as assistant general agent of the
Western Department with General Agent Porter P. Heywood. Mr.
Heywood dying in 1896, the general agency firm of Cofran &
Bissell was formed, consisting of Mr. Cofran and Richard M.
Bissell. When Mr. Bissell left Chicago to go to the home office
as vice president in 1903, A. G. Dugan was called from Kentucky
and the firm of Cofran & Dugan was formed, continuing until
Mr. Cofran was summoned to Hartford as vice president. In
the opinion of everyone who had known Mr. Cofran or had
followed his remarkable career in the West and Northwest, his
promotion was well earned and meant increased efficiency for the
company.

Thomas TurnbuU, who was connected with the company for
thirty-four years, was born June 30, 1834, in Gladsmuir, Scotland,
and came to this country while yet a young man. For a time he
was in the wholesale tea business in New York and Philadelphia.

[ 123]

His first experience in insurance was with the Niagara Fire Insur-
ance Company for which he acted as special agent in New York
and New England for seven years. In 1876 he was appointed
general agent in New York state for the Hartford. After ten years,
June II, 1886, he was made assistant secretary at the home office.
His long and faithful service won him promotion to the secretary-
ship January 8, 1908, following the death of Philander C. Royce,
December i, 1907. Mr. Turnbull contemplated earlier retirement
but his desire to serve during the centennial year led him to with-
hold his resignation till it should take effect April i, 1910. His
associates and the entire office and field force have evidenced the
high esteem in which he is held.

Frederick Samson, secretary, born In Glastonbury March 29,
1847, has been with the company nearly half of its whole century.
He began March 17, 1866, as a clerk when there were only three
officers and three clerks. He was special agent for several years in
the '70's and then had charge of the loss department in the home
office for over twenty years with the title of general agent. He
was appointed assistant secretary January 16, 1908, and secretary
June 7, 1910.

S. E. Locke, secretary, had his first insurance experience in the
town in which he was born. Glens Falls, N. Y. His birthday was
February 5, 1866, and he was still a youth when he became clerk
in the office of the Glens Falls Fire Insurance Company. He came
to Hartford as clerk in the office of the Orient Insurance Com-
pany in January, 1887. After nearly nine years, mostly spent
in field work, he went with the Philadelphia Underwriters as special
agent. In 1899 he became assistant secretary of the Reading which
was reinsured by the Hartford in 1902. For a short time after
that he was special agent of the Westchester in New York. On
March i, 1904, he was given charge of the Hartford's New York
state business; in September, 1905, he was appointed superinten-
dent of agencies and on January 8, 1908, he v/as promoted to be
assistant secretary. On June 7 of this centennial year he was made
secretary.

These secretaries are in the underwriting department. On the
same date the directors created the office of recording secretary and
Daniel J. Glazier was the appointee. Mr. Glazier is a native of
Hartford where he was born January 20, 1865. On leaving school
he entered the employ of the Phoenix Insurance Company. Later

[ 124]

he was secretary of the Schuyler Electric Company, of" Middletown,
Conn. On December i, 1895, he came with the Hartford and has
been in the financial and investment department ever since.

The appointments of all three secretaries was in accord with the
principles of civil service and in recognition of most faithful dis-
charge of duty.

Since George M. Coit's secretaryship, ending in 1870, John
D. Browne had been secretary from February i, 1870, to Novem-
ber I, 1880; Charles B. Whiting from November 20, 1880, to June
I, 1886, and Philander C. Royce from that date till December i,
1907. Mr. Browne resigned to become president of the Connecti-
cut Fire Insurance Company and Mr. Whiting to become president
of the Orient Fire Insurance Company.

Christopher C. Lyman had continued as assistant secretary till
his resignation, June i, 1878. The position then remained vacant
till the election of Mr. Royce, who was succeeded by Mr. Turn-
bull and he by Mr. Samson and Mr. Locke.

Hartford is sometimes called the "Home of Insurance Presi-
dents." The Hartford Fire has produced several, itself having had
but six. Secretaries who have become presidents of other Hart-
ford companies are : James G. Bolles, president of North American
Fire Insurance Company; Caleb B. Bowers, president of the
City Fire Insurance Company and of the Putnam Fire Insurance
Company; , John D. Browne, president of the Connecticut
Fire Insurance Company; Charles B. Whiting, president of the
Orient Fire Insurance Company. Directors who have become
presidents of other Hartford companies are : Thomas K. Brace,
president of the Mtna. Insurance Company, and David F. Robin-
son, president of the Protection Insurance Company. President
DeWitt C. Skilton of the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company of
Hartford was formerly employed in the office of the Hartford.
Secretary A. F. Wilmarth became vice president of the Home Fire
Insurance Company of New York and Secretary George M. Coit
assistant manager of the Royal Insurance Company of Liverpool,
England.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The directors of the company from the beginning have been
men of highest worth in the community, men who have done much
to establish and maintain Hartford's place in the world of com-
merce, industry and finance. Each of the names in the full list

[ 125 ]

printed on another page is known to ail who have familiarized
themselves with the city's history and progress.

For the first quarter of the century the board passed upon risks,
appointments and all matters of administration. When growth
of business no longer would admit of this, the duties were assigned
one after another to committees and then to the executive officers,
who eventually had to be increased in number. In no way can the
development of the company be followed better than in the minutes
in the records of the board embodying these changes.

Of the present board, Jonathan B. Bunce is president of the
Society for Savings ; president of the board of directors and chair-
man of the finance committee of the Phoenix Mutual Life Insur-
ance Company, a trustee in the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit
Company, vice president Hartford Hospital, president of the
Retreat for Insane, vice president of the American School at
Hartford for the Deaf and Dumb and director in the Phoenix
National Bank.

James J. Goodwin is a trustee in the Connecticut Trust and
Safe Deposit Company and a director in the Connecticut Mutual
Life Insurance Company, the Erie Railroad, the Holyoke Water
Power Company, the Collins Company and the Wadsworth
Atheneum.

^Theodore Lyman, son of the late Assistant Secretary Christopher
C. rLyman, is a vice president of the Society for Savings; trustee
in the Hartford Trust Company and a director in the Connecticut
General Life Insurance Company.

George Roberts, late president of the Hartford Carpet Corpora-
tion, is a trustee in the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit Com-
pany and a director in the American National Bank, the Travelers
Insurance Company and the Travelers Indemnit}' Company.

William C. Skinner is president of the Colt's Patent Firearms
Company, a vice president of the Society for Savings, a trustee in
the Fidelity Trust Company and a director in the Connecticut
Mutual Life Insurance Company and in the Phoenix National
Bank.

Meigs H. WTiaples is president of the Connecticut Trust
and Safe Deposit Company, a vice president of the Society for
Savings, a director in the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Com-
pany, the Collins Company, the Stanley Rule and Level Company
and the Board of Trade, trustee of the Scottish Union and National

[ 126]

Fire Insurance Company and a member of the Connecticut River
Bridge Commission.

James M. Thomson, formerly one of Connecticut's leading
merchants, is a trustee in the Society for Savings and a director in
the Phoenix National Bank.

Charles E. Chase is president of the company and Richard M.
Bissell vice president and underwriting manager.

[ 127 ]

XVII
AGENCY SYSTEM AND DEPARTMENTS

THE relations of agents to the company and of the company
to the agents has formed an integral part of our story. The
present system is a development in accord with the most
advanced ideas of one period after another, from the time ot Jonathan
G. W. Trumbull of Norwich down to the appointments made one
hundred years later.

The early stages of compensation — the policy tee of 50 cents
paid by the insured, the gratuities and the commission of 5 per cent
— have been noted. After 1816, the commissions varied from 5
and 7^ per cent to 10 per cent according to location, that is, accord-
ing to the amount of business a man would be supposed to do when
his neighborhood was taken into consideration.

When the first Book of Instructions was issued in 1839, the
prevailing commission was 7^ per cent. With 1840 came an increase
to ID per cent and this was raised to 15 per cent in i860. That
has been the minimum commission ever since.

Agents in the old days reported once a month or, if they were
as far away as New York state, once in six months would serve the
purpose. The wonderful system of daily reports was not devised
until in the '6o's, nor could it be effective till the home offices had
equipped themselves with the statistics and maps which enable
them to form a conception for themselves of the risks reported.

A sheet of instructions to the agents about 1835 shows the ad-
vantage of a specific policy and orders the agents to divide "the
sum insured into many parts." The last paragraph voices the
constant sentiment of the company, as follows :

"It is to be hoped that the agents of the Hartford Fire Insurance
Company will not descend to the ruinous practice of underbidding
other offices to obtain business. There is a point below which if
we descend our annual receipts will not equal our losses. So great
folly ought to withdraw from us that public confidence which should
give us preference over other offices at equal rates of premium.
Our premiums should not be higher than to yield a fair profit for

[ 128 ]

FREDERICK SAMSON

Secrt'lary

SIDNEY E. LOCKE

Secretary

DANIEL J. GLAZIER

RocordlnK Secretary

the hazard we incur of losing capital by extraordinary fires. Such
premiums the public are willing to give, and the confidence we
should inspire should be the result of an even and equitable course
of conduct toward the insured under all circumstances, especially
in case of loss."

We have seen that the company at a comparatively early date
in its history began to establish agencies in what were then remote
sections of the country, as in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Business
in these sections kept pace with the rapid development of the country,
and as it increased it became more and more difficult for the home
office to supervise and direct its expansion. Although, judged by
modern standards, the means of communication were imperfect,
it was imperative that the company's officers at Hartford should
keep in close touch with the agents in every section. Accordingly
the department system of handling the business came into being.

THE EASTERN DEPARTMENT

Of course the main business continued to be conducted directly
from the home office which, when the divisions were established,
was called the Eastern Department. The territory now covered
by this department includes all of Canada except British Columbia,
the New England states. New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Penn-
sylvania, Delaware, the District of Columbia and Arkansas.

THE WESTERN DEPARTMENT

The first department to be established in the outlying sections
was and is still called the Western Department. Items in its history
have been given on earlier pages as they formed an integral part
of the main story of the company's growth, but as it is the oldest
as well as the largest of the company's branches its concise and
consecutive history should be given.

It was created by vote of the board of directors at their meeting
May i8, 1852. Columbus, Ohio, was made the headquarters and
Demas Adams was appointed general agent. The territory assigned
to Mr. Adams comprised eight states, namely: Ohio, Indiana,
Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky. Mr.
Adams acted as general agent only three years but evidently he
made a strong impression on the officers and directors for when
President Huntington tendered his resignation as president in 1853
the directors seriously considered offering the presidency to Mr.

[ '3' ]

Adams. Indeed they did tentatively broach the subject to him
but later, and in accord with Mr. Adams's hope, they prevailed
upon Mr. Huntington to continue to serve. Mr. Adams died in
September, 1854.

David Alexander w^as appointed general agent for the depart-
ment in October, 1854. Under him the business of the department
expanded greatly so that in a few years the employment of special
agents became necessary. At first the work of planting new agencies,
adjusting losses and supervising the business was intrusted to the
local agents in the various states, selected by reason of their unusual
efficiency and trustworthiness. One of these, George Francis
Bissell, who had been local agent at Dubuque, la., since 1853, was
selected about i860 to act as a regular traveling supervisor or special
agent, with headquarters in Chicago, a city which rapidly was
gaining the ascendency for that section, then known as the Far
West.

Mr. Bissell was appointed general agent upon the resignation
of Mr. Alexander, January 31, 1863, the appointment dating'from
March 30 of that year. It being clearly indicated by this time that
Chicago was to be the commercial and financial center of the Missis-
sippi valley, the department headquarters were removed to that
city from Columbus almost immediately upon Mr. Bissell's appoint-
ment, or in May, 1863.

General Agent Bissell became one of Chicago's foremost citi-
zens. Endowed with remarkable vitality and force, he materially
advanced the company's cause from the outset. His record at
the time of the Chicago fire we already have noted. A home office
publication said of him: "He possessed the confidence of the
officers and the directors in a high degree, and in all business matters
intrusted to him good judgment and unswerving fidelity marked
their consummation. His ability as an underwriter was always
recognized by his associates in the profession, but to none was this
fact better known than to those with whom daily intercourse was
the rule. Broadminded and possessed of good common sense,
he was always patient to hear and considerate to act in all the many
intricate problems submitted for his consideration and judgment.
His devotion to the interests of the Hartford remains an inheritance
and example for his brother officers to emulate."

A public-spirited man, he was a leader in enterprises that tended
to the advantage of the city of his adoption. He was one of the

[ 132 ]

founders of the Union League Club and was its president in 1889.
For several years he was president of the Presbyterian Social Union
and at the time of his death he had served ten years as treasurer
of the Old People's Home.

Mr. Bissell was born in Manchester, Conn., only a few miles
from the home office of the Hartford, on June 22, 1827. His paternal
great-grandfather fought in the colonial wars and in the Revolu-
tionary War. His grandfather also served in the Continental Army
and was a major in the regular army at the time of his death follo\\ -
ing the declaration of peace. On his mother's side, his grand-
father William Wilson was one of Washington's men. Mr. Bissell
was educated in Manchester and married there in 1855, Jerusha
Woodbridge, daughter of Deodatus Woodbridge who was the
cousin of Ward Woodbridge, one of the original subscribers and
first directors of the Hartford. After engaging in mercantile busi-
ness in Hartford for a time, Mr. Bissell went West in 1850 and,
with a brother, conducted a grocery and commission business in
Dublique, la., till he became local agent for the Hartford in 1853.
He died June 25, 1895, after more than forty years of continuous
and most valuable service for the company. At a memorial meeting
of underwriters in Chicago, many spoke of him, his influence and
his work in the highest terms.

Porter P. Heywood was made general agent succeeding Mr.
Bissell, in July, 1895. He also was a New Englander. Born in
Westminster, Mass., in 1829, he remained in that quiet town until
1855 when he went West and followed the profession of school
teaching. At one time he was principal of the public schools of
Aurora, 111. His fire insurance career dated from his connection
with the office of Moore & Stearns of Chicago in 1864.

In January, 1866, Mr. Heywood began with the Hartford, as an
adjuster in the Western Department. After two years he went
with the Insurance Company of North America, only however to
return to the Hartford in November, 1869, under appointment as
general agent in the coast territory where the Pacific Department
was being organized with headquarters in San Francisco. Trans-
ferred from the coast to Chicago in 1872, he had been made assistant
general agent in the Western Department with Mr. Bissell, whom
he was destined to succeed. At his death, April 28, 1896, after
he had given of his best to the Hartford for a period of nearly thirty
full years, the Chicago Underwriters' Association said of him, in

[ 133 ]

memorial resolutions: "He enriched his own character by a noble
generosity to his fellow men."

Mr. Heywood also was prominent in the social and literary life
of Chicago, a member of several organizations and societies, includ-
ing the Art Institute, the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American
Revolution, the Marquette Club, and the Union League Club, of
which latter club he was vice president.

John W. G. Cofran was appointed assistant general agent with
Mr. Heywood in August, 1895, and Richard M. Bissell, son of
George F. Bissell, was appointed second assistant general agent.
Upon the death of Mr. Heywood, these two gentlemen were made
general agents under the firm name of Cofran & Bissell. On
January i, 1903, Mr. Bissell was called to Hartford as vice presi-
dent of the company. The following October i, Mr. Cofran and
A. G. Dugan, who had been chosen from the Kentucky field, formed
the general agency firm of Cofran & Dugan, with W. C. Boorn
as assistant general agent. Mr. Boorn's appointment was made
on November i of that year. Six years later, on December i, 1909,
Mr. Cofran was called to the home office as vice president. There-
upon, January i, 1910, Mr. Dugan was appointed general agent
and Mr. Boorn continued as assistant general agent.

The states in the department today are Ohio, Indiana, West
Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming,
Colorado, New Mexico, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

THE PACIFIC DEPARTMENT

The Pacific Department was organized in 1870. As far back
as 1857 Edward McLean had been made an agent in San Francisco
and John Fowler and H. H. Bigelow had commissions at about
the same time. In 1861 they were succeeded by the firm of Bigelow
Brothers, with which A. P. Flint was connected.

In May, 1866, the question of withdrawal from California was
left to the executive officers and apparently at that time the company
did withdraw.

On the recommendation of President George L. Chase, after
a visit to the coast, it was decided in September, 1869, to re-enter
the field. Porter P. Heywood was appointed general agent there
in November, 1869, and in 1870 organization was completed with the
appointment of General Agent Augustus P. Flint and the formation

[ 134]

of the firm of Flint & Heywood. When Mr. Heywood was
transferred to Chicago in 1872, the duties of general agent devolved
upon Mr. Flint alone until his death in 1885. Henry Keeney
Belden and John W. G. Cofran succeeded Mr. Flint as managers
under the firm name of Belden & Cofran.

Mr. Belden was well equipped for the work. He had been
connected with the company since 1864, in which year he entered
the local office in Milwaukee. He was born in New York in 1849
but most of his life up to this time had been spent in Milwaukee.
In 1866 he went to the Western Department offices in Chicago.
Three years later he was made head clerk in the San Francisco
office and in 1878 local agent in that city. From 1880 to the time
of his appointment with Mr. Cofran, he was special agent and
adjuster.

The business prospered greatly under the management of this
firm. Mr. Cofran having been transferred to the Western Depart-
ment as assistant general agent in 1895, Mr. Belden on July i of
that year became sole manager of the Pacific Department with
Whitney Palache as assisant manager. In 1902 Mr. Belden and
Mr. Palache were appointed associate managers under the firm
name of Belden & Palache. Mr. Belden died May 26, 1903,
leaving a name worthy of high place on the company's roll of
honor.

Whitney Palache is a native of San Francisco and has gained
his position through industry, fidelity and clear-sightedness. Born
in 1866, he completed his preparatory course with honor and
entered the University of California in 1882 with the expectation
of becoming a lawyer, but at the end of his sophomore year the
condition of his health compelled him to abandon that plan and
he was drawn toward insurance as a vocation. Accepting a sub-
ordinate position in the office of the Union Insurance Company of
California (later absorbed by the Alliance Insurance Company of
Philadelphia), he soon became special agent and after two years in
that capacity, in 1890 he accepted a similar position with the Hart-
ford, his territory consisting of the northwestern states of the Pacific
Department with headquarters at Portland, Ore. On October i,
1903, Mr. Palache and Dixwell Hewitt were appointed general
agents of the Pacific Department, the firm name being Palache &
Hewitt. The earthquake year of 1906 was a season of stress to
test the mettle of any men but Palache & Hewitt proved to be

[ '35 ]

both cool-headed and tireless and their business has increased
splendidly since then.

Mr. Hewitt began his insurance career in 1886 as clerk in the
office of the Pacific Board of Fire Underwriters and subsequently
was made surveyor for the board. In 1892 he was appointed
special agent of the Orient Fire Insurance Company and the Provi-
dence and Washington Insurance Company and in 1895 became
special agent of the Union Assurance Society of London. In 1898
he was made special agent of the Manchester Fire Assurance Com-
pany and the Caledonian Insurance Company. In 1891 he was
called to the Phoenix Assurance Company of London as assistant
manager of its Pacific Department and in 1902 the demonstration of
his worth had secured for him the position of associate manager for the
Phoenix of London and the Providence-Washington. He resigned
this office in 1903 to become associate manager of the Hartford.

The Pacific Department comprises California, Oregon, Wash-
ington, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, British
Columbia and the Hawaiian Islands.

THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT

The first general agent to be named for the state of Texas was
Captain D. E. Grove who was chosen for the position November i,
1894. For ten years, latterly with W. B. Hays as assistant general
agent, he rendered service which won for him high encomium from
President Chase on his retirement in 1904. Mr. Hays, who had
shown much energy and zeal, also retired at that time. John|B.
Hereford took up the duties as general agent for the state on August
15, 1904. Prior to 1891 he was engaged in local insurance business
with the agency of Hereford & Furst of Dallas. Subsequently he
became special agent for Texas of the Guardian Insurance Corpora-
tion, which was reinsured by the Hartford in 1894. That year Mr.
Hereford received appointment as special agent for the Liverpool
and London and Globe Insurance Company. He was promoted
to be state agent in 1903, which position he held at the time he was
made general agent for the Hartford with offices at Dallas. It was
not until the summer of 1906 that the department was fully organ-
ized. Mr. Hereford's broad experience and wide acquaintance
enable him to direct the energies of his men in the right channels
and to supplement the efforts of the home office to maintain and
improve the company's position in the Lone Star state.

[ 136]

THE SOUTHERN DEPARTMENT

The youngest of the departments but one that is full of life,
is splendidly equipped and is proving its worthiness in the territory
where, in the old days of Secretary BoUes, the policyholder objected
to the presence of the earthquake clause in his policy, is the Southern
Department. This was organized in the last year of the company's
century, February i, iQog, with Thomas Egleston and W. R.
Prescott as general agents, the firm name being Egleston & Prescott.
Their headquarters are at Atlanta and their territory comprises
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ala-
bama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Thomas Egleston came with the company in 1877 when he was
appointed local agent at Atlanta. Six years later he was made
special agent for the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. In 1885 he
was promoted to be general agent.

Up to this time, with a territory covering eight states, Mr.
Egleston had supervised the entire business of the territory and
had adjusted practically all the losses without assistance. The
growth of the business now necessitated additional help and Mr.
Egleston appointed his first special agent in 1889; subsequently
other special agents were employed. Mr. Egleston justly may be
proud of his unbroken success in the management of the Hartford's
southern interests. He is courteous but firm in the enforcement of
his convictions and altogether has been for years one of the most
notable figures in southern fire underwriting.

W. R. Prescott, the associate general agent, entered the service
of the Hartford in April, 1889, as special agent throughout Mr.
Egleston's territory. He resigned in July, 1894, to accept the
position of assistant manager of the Southern Department of the
Queen Insurance Company, where he continued until January,
1906, when the firm of Egleston & Prescott was formed and he
became associate general agent of the Hartford, ripe in experience
and devoted to his calling.

MARINE AND TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT

The Marine and Transportation Department was organized at
the home office April 10, 1909. It is under the direction of C. S.
Timberlake. Mr. Timberlake has been in the fire insurance busi-
ness since 1896 when he was appointed special agent for Providence-

[ 137 ]

Washington Insurance Company for the Middle Northwestern
states. In 1904 he became general agency superintendent of the
fire branch for the Federal Insurance Company and Assurance
Company of America, with headquarters in New York. In 1906
he joined the forces of Chubb & Son of New York as agency super-
intendent for their Inland Marine Department, resigning in April,
1909, to accept the office of general agent for the Inland Marine
Department of the Hartford.

The contracts issued under the supervision of this department
indicate the wide scope of insurance as developed since the days of
Wadsworth and of Nathaniel Terry. Following is a synopsis of
them :

Automobiles : — This policy covers against actual loss or damage caused
by fire arising from any cause whatsoever, including explosion, self-ignition
and lightning; also risk of navigation and transportation and while on board
railroad cars against loss or damage caused by derailment of the car or
collision of railroad car with another railroad car, or while on board steamer
against loss caused by stranding, sinking or burning or collision with another
vessel, including general average and salvage charges and against loss by
theft, robbery or pilferage if amounting to ^^25 on each occasion. The
policy covers the automobile within the limits of the United States and
Canada.

Collision Insurance : — This is written under form of endorsement
attached to the automobile policy which covers the machine so insured
against damage sustained through collision with any object whether moving
or stationary.

Tourist Floater Policy : — This policy covers personal effects, from
the time they are taken from permanent residence until their return, against
all risk of fire, navigation and transportation including the risk of theft of
entire shipping package while in custody of the common carrier, and also
includes the risk of theft not exceeding 15 per cent of the face of the policy
for loss of entire grip or trunk while in the apartments of the assured or
checked against receipt in any hotel or boarding house. Policies are issued
under two forms, one covering travel in the United States and Canada and
the other without limit as to territory.

Salesmen's Samples Policies: — These contracts protect the samples
used for the display or direct sale of the traveling representatives anywhere
in the United States against all the risk of navigation, transportation and
fire and also against risk of theft of entire trunk and its contents while in
the custody of the common carrier. The policy attaches immediately on
samples' leaving the store or warehouse of the assured and so continues until
their return.

[ 138]

WESTERN DEPARTMENT

A. G. DUGAN

General Agent

W. C. BOORN

Assistant General Agent

J. J. PURCELL

Second Assistant G(-neral A^onl

Motor Boats: — This contract covers on engines, machinery, hulls,
fittings and furniture and protects against all perils of navigation and inland
and coastwise waters including fire, explosion, collision, theft and jettison.

Horse and Wagon Floaters : — This policy covers horses and vehicles
and merchandise on wagons against all the risk of fire and lightning, also
while on board railroad cars; also damage caused by derailment of the cars
or collision of the railroad car with another railroad car. This contract
however does not cover injury to livestock caused by coupling or uncoupling
of cars; this also covers while on board steamer against loss caused by
stranding, sinking, burning or collision with another vessel.

Registered Mail: — This policy covers consignments of bonds, cou-
pons, bank notes, certificates of stock, currency and other securities or
valuables against all risk while sent by registered mail between the United
States and the Dominion of Canada. The contract attaches from the time
the property is deposited and registered at the post office and so continues
until delivered to the place of address.

Mail Package Insurance : — This guarantees the safe delivery of mer-
chandise sent by registered or unregistered mail. The contract attaches at
the time of delivery at the post until delivery at the place of address.

Merchandise in Transit: — This policy is issued under either open
policy or annual contract protecting against all the risks of fire, navigation
and transportation but covering all rail and ferries running in connection
with all rail routes, sound, coastwise, river and Great Lakes shipments.

[ '4> ]

XVIII
HOME OFFICE

THE present home office of the company is in its large
granite building at the corner of Pearl and Trumbull
streets. After the removal in 1835 from Walter Mitchell's
law office, No. 262 State street, to the rooms at No. 16 State street,
increasing business was accommodated by occasional enlargement
of the quarters till in 1854 new offices were secured on Main street,
just north of Pratt street. Still more space being required, the
company moved again, in 1859, to a substantial office building on
Main street opposite the old state house.

Calculations as to space were being upset frequently by the
growth of the business and also by the multiplication of maps and
other equipment, while the need of capacious and wholly secure
vault room was making itself more and more manifest. Accord-
ingly the four-story building at the corner of Pearl and Trumbull
streets was built in 1869, and occupied in 1870, large enough, it
was believed, to satisfy all requirements for one generation at least
and provided with every device then known for security and for
facility in conducting business. The Trumbull street frontage was
sixty feet and the depth on Pearl street one hundred feet. Only
the south half of the first floor was occupied by the offices for some
time, the rest being rented. In 1896-7, it became compulsory to
add another story and build an addition which makes the Trumbull
street frontage one hundred and four feet, and still another addition
in the re'ar of the other had to be built in 1906.

Viewed from either street, it is one of the most substantial-
looking structures in a city of handsome insurance buildings.
Carved in stone over the entrance and between the stories of the
addition and carved in wood within the building is the now widely
familiar hart. One large piece of fine carving, in the vice presi-
dents' room, represents the whole seal of the company.

Yet everywhere it is utility and worthiness that are aimed at.
The massive vaults, almost in the center of the enlarged offices,
are unexceptionable. To the south of them are the rooms for the

[ 142 ]

officers, the president's office looking out upon both Trumbull and
Pearl streets, remodeled this year. 1 o the north of the hallway
leading back toward the vaults from the entrance is the main office
room where the many clerks have the best of light and air and the
secretaries' desks are on a low platform by the Trumbull street
windows. The maps and like statistical data have abundant space
in the recent enlargement of this room to the west.

In the rear of the main office part of the building is the printing
plant, devoted wholly to the company's work and one of the largest
as it is one of the most completely outfitted in the city. There are
thirteen presses and, working nights as well as days much of the
time, the sixty-five employees have all they can do to turn out the
work required for the fast increasing business. They do all the
printing, binding and general publishing for the Eastern Depart-
ment and a large portion of that for the rest of the field. For one
item alone, there are 170 forms of policies, which number includes
the various "standard" forms and the variations of them called for
by the laws and departments of different states. A million calendars
a year are sent out from this office and twenty tons of blotting paper,
to say nothing of memorandum books, cards, blanks of all kinds,
for home office and field, record books, pamphlets and circulars.

[ 143]

XIX

THE POLICY, RATEMAKING AND REIN-
SURANCE

THE policy, as has been said, remains in its chief substance
a rather constant quantity. Its form has been molded in
the crucible of many fiery experiences and the vagaries of
various legislatures necessitate minor variations, but its main prin-
ciple of protection with equity is unchanging and it continues the
heart of the whole system.

We have read the Sanford & Wadsworth contract of 1794 and
the proposals and hazards of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company
of 1 8 10, as published in the advertisement.* The contract in
that first policy of the company is shown on opposite page.

The steel engraving at the top of the first page, suggestive of the
value of insurance in its day, is instructive to us. The scene evi-
dently is at the foot of Ferry street, on the banks of the Connecticut,
in Hartford. Somewhat idealized, the old bridge can be seen in
the distance ; there is a ship at the dock and another on the stocks.
A three-story, two-tenement dwelling hardby is on fire, the two
upper floors already a "seething furnace." A woman, with the
scantiest of emergency apparel and both arms extended toward
heaven, is running into the street followed by a child which is
dragging its nightdress behind it, while the husband, clad only in
short night clothes and a high hat, is straining at a trunk or bureau
in the front doorway.

A bucket brigade of about fifty men is passing buckets of water
from the handy river to the pump machine which is throwing a
small stream nearly as high as the blazing roof. A second stream,
directed upon almost the same spot, comes also from this machine
or from another near it. The salvage corps is at work and, though
the family have not had time to dress, the foreground is strewn
with furniture enough to set up housekeeping with. One con-
spicuous man is getting along famously with the week's washing
or the family's bedclothes on his back. Then as now, undoubtedly,
expectation of salvage was one of the factors in making rates.

* See page 43.

[ 144 ]

.a.

HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY.

f3ri)ijJ ^InjStrunient or Policp of ai^^utante

Siln^UranCe Companp, in consideration

lo die wji^rMnutm pa:^, ihp R4W<p?» hertof is he^bv^dcnojTlpfJKd^HATa agreed to Luuroj^ind Oamhcreby agrei

It Damage by Fiic, to die &

agree loinstu'e,^ (J^y

ig&^/fa'^^J'o .<!Vn4^

/•/TN CONSIpERATION of which prcrfitsrt, the Hutford Fire Insurance Company Doru hereby covenant and agree with the uid ^-. -•'> ?^

■ ■■ rn«)' sust^ahyymE, upon the

Auignv jhiU orm^y sus;

Company Dcra hereby covenant and agree wim me uio ^_ -• '

Executors, Adfflinistraton and auigns, to pay ootJ Mi)>fC^ll L01& «r Dl^Ug? nhich the Auurcd CF
property herebj' Insured, nai c:Lce<diiic in amount the sajd Sum <^ ^ — T 'CTr . -y C- 1 t^

.VND ytUIS CORDO^^Tlt*^ ilotJi funher covenant and »^(e Isi ind niih ikt- laid Assured yfe«,« Execulorsi Auminiitritors and SSiisni, that ihii .liiuraoce
.hall continue and be in force from the expiration of the time before mentioned fur i(i doraljon, for » long as the srud Ajiured, ovu^ Aiiign* *hafl continue to
p.ny the fike Rate of Premium, u hath been pud for ihii Iniurancc, for iO long as thii C-oqxjralian shall agree to accept, and actually receive the tame from the
A-.i>u>rd or A^S Assigns. PtioviDEn, That the PrcmiuTn for a continuance of the Insurance, ^all be actuaUy paid by the Assured or^'d^^Asiigiv* to-Jii*
I'orporaiion before the Djy bniilcd for the li.-rminalion of the Risk, and such pament pnfloned on this Policj-, or a Receipt therefor given by this Corporaiioiii
And il IB further agreed, that the amount of such Lots or Damage, as the Absuivil ^x/itjd Assigns shall be entiiird to receive by virtue of this I'tlicy, ihall b«
paid within Sixry Days after notice and proof thereof trijde by the Assured in confortnity to the Proposals of this Corporaiion annexed lo this Pobcy.

/^ROVIDED .VLWAYS, and it is hereby declared, that lhi$ Corporation shall not be liable, or bound lo pay the said
A$*ured, in this Policy named, j^-t-:^ E«eculors, Administrators, or Aisigns, for any loss or Damage by fire ihat may h.ippen or take place inconsequence

of any Eanhquatc, Invasion, CivU Commotion, Riot, «■ any Miliiar>' or Usurped Poiver whatsoever. PaoviDro Also, That in cue the Assured shall have already any
oibrr Insurance on ihr hereby Insured Premises /^^ shall notify the same lo this corporation, before, or at ihe^^c of the evcculioa of this Policy, and eaus«
the tame to l)c endorsed thereon, or this Assurance shall be void and of no rffcci and if the said Assured, aj/i^^ Assigns shall hereafter make any other
Insujacce 00 tlie hereby Insured Premms /Ld^ shall wiih all rrasonahle diligcrtce, notify the «mc 10 (his Corporatiun, and have the same endorsed on

this Instrumeul, or oihcrAiiise acknuulcdgcd in ivriting, by this Corporauon, or in default thereof this Policy sh:)U cease and be of no further effect. A(.U tt l»
rVRTiitn DecLARCt} and Acrccd, that in case of any other Insurance being made upon the Premises hereby Irsurcd, ehhrr prior or subsequtnt 10 the date o^
these Presents, the Assured shall not, in any case of Lessor Damage, beentiUed 10 demand orreeo'xrr, on this policy, any greater proportion of the Lou. susu
than ihe amoum heriliy InsurnJ shall bear to the whole amoun' "f thf several Intllnnce^ made, or id be mide, on the I'
o OccLARcD, to be the true intent and meaning of the Partica hereto, and of these Presents, that

shall, at any tiroe after ihc maJfXfg, and
during the lime this Policy n-ould otherwise continue in force, be appropriated or used for the purpose of carry ing cm or exercising the trade, business or vocaiion of *
Soap Boiler, Talto* Chandler, Brewer, Maliler, B.iktr, Rope Maker. Sugar Refiner, Distiller, Chemist, Varnish Maker. Paper M^ker, Stable Keeper, Tavtra
Ktiprr, China, Class, or E;.rlhinwarc Seller, Oil and Colourmen. Printer, Cooper, Carpenter, Cabinet Maker, Coach Maker, Boat Builder, Ship Chandler Of
Apothecary, or any Maoufaciory iihich requires the u^e of Fire llea% or shall be used for the purpose bf Storing iherein Gunpowder, Hemp, Ftaj, Oil, Piichi
Tar, Rnsm, Turpentine, Spirits of Turncrfine, ^ua Foriis, Sirav , Hay, Ci^n Vnihnshed, Fodder, Distilled Spirits, or other hazardous Uoods, that then and
from rhcnteforth, so long as the said ^/^ ^/••-.^^o^>*^ ^^
shall b( appropriated or used for any or eilher of the g|(q>oi(S aforesaid, the;

l*r,-n>iic» Imurcd by ilu# Pul-^ AbO It la

the above mentioned ^^y£.^.c-£<:*^>vz^^

s shall e

comprehend or t

BuUioi

Moi

■eement be signified in vrriting,
Mr any Bw4s of Account, \Vr

and be of n

A>D IT tS XORtOVtIl DtCtA

tun Securities, Deeds, or other

re or effect, fiiltss oTiitlmlit spcciatlV
That ihn Policy, or the Insurance hereby
lei.ces of tiile (o Uind»i DonJs, Bills, Note*,

s Co«POft«
iniendi'd 10 be irtadc, does ni
orolhc. EiiJcncesof Debts,

AND IT 15 I'XOERSTOOD AND AGREED. a» well by this Corporation, as by the Assured, tvamed in ihU PoLicr, and all oihert who may become
'ntcreited iherein. thai this Insurance is made and accepted in reference to the Proposals which accompany these Presenli, and in every case the said l*ropOUl* are tQ
be used to eiphin the Rights and Obligations of the Partirs, e«ept so fat forth as the Policy itself speciiically declares ihoit Rights and Obti^ations.
IN WITNESS uh^wlr iIk siJ C(^?ixirationhnie caused ibrtTiCoyinNyrit. to be afhxcd lo these Prewnu, and the same to be signed b)- thtlr Pjj
SicarraRT. th; C^/Wfe^'vX? — — — ''" ^^ C^^^^V€i^&^ in ihe year o( our Lord Orie I'hous.and Eight huoilrtd and

N. B. This poliq* is not a-iignalilf, unless bv eonscntof the Corporation, manifested

ic^/^cA^Ji^"

A wood-engraving adaptation of this same picture adorned the
top of the third page of some of the poHcies and headed the adver-
tisement in the press. The father and child are eUminated but the
distracted mother is still there. The salvage corps is reduced to
two men in the foreground, staggering under the weight of two or
three beds each. A ladder reaches to the glowing embers of the
roof. This wood-engraving was continued till 1815 at least, and
through that time and for some while longer the date at the bottom of
the page remained, "Hartford, July 27, 1810," and under all, this line:

"N. B. — The company will begin business on the sixth day of
August next."

In 1828 the classifications had been dropped but the wood-
cut had reappeared.

The present stock policy is of the standard form prescribed by
law and needs no description here.

If all buildings were alike, all occupied for the same purpose,
and if all owners were actuated by the same high motives, fire
insurance would be a simple matter. The variety of buildings,
of occupancy and of location makes for complexity. All this is
axiomatic to insurance men and the present system is a readily
understandable outcome. Yet for those who are reading the story
of the Hartford to get at the process by which the fire insurance
of today was evolved, a word or two in simplest elucidation is
necessary. In the beginning there were only two rates, according
as to whether the building was of brick or stone or of wood and
with no concern as to character of occupancy. One fire after another
caused the shaping of a method of classification, with division and
redivision of classes — to continue so long as men shall vary their
mode and material in construction and the purposes of occupancy
and so long as communities and concerns shall improve or neglect
facilities for fighting fire. Constant study indicates approximately
the average actual cost for insuring, class by class, but to arrive
at the fair rate for the individuals in a class, special features must
be taken into account, necessitating a large amount of data.

Briefly, the aim is to have the rates uniformly equitable so that
each class and each person insured shall contribute a just share
and no more to the general fund. "Companies as a whole," says
Mr. Bissell, "are estimated to expend over a million of dollars per
annum for rating purposes. Single companies expend as much
as ^20,000 per annum for maps alone."

[ 146]

COMPANIES REINSURED

Assisting greatly in this work of shaping the present system,
the company also has fostered fire insurance in general. We have
seen how it was the first to reinsure another company — the New
Haven Fire. Since then it has added to its list of companies rein-
sured by it the following:

Equitable Fire Insurance Company of Concord, N. H., . 1869
Savannah Fire and Marine Insurance Company, Savannah, Ga., 1890
Central City Insurance Company, Selma, Ala., .... June 27, 1892
Guardian Assurance Corporation, Limited, London, Eng-
land (;^2 10,000,000), May 29, 1894

Broadway Insurance Company of New York, November 11, 1896

Crescent City Insurance Company of New Orleans, La., November 30, 1896
Queen City Mutual Insurance Company, Buffalo, N. Y., June 17, 1898
Fireman's Insurance Company of Boston, Mass., . . . July 9, 1898
Saginaw Valley Fire and Marine Insurance Company,

Saginaw, Mich., May 14, 1899

Franklin Fire Insurance Company, Columbus, Ohio, . September 16, 1899
Merchants' Insurance Company, of Providence, R. L, . July 3, 1900
Queens and Suffolk Mutual Insurance Company, Yap-
hank, N. Y., April 26, 1901

Lancashire Insurance Company, Manchester, England

(1^276,022,000), April 26, 1901

American Fire Insurance Company of New York, . . June 28, 1901
Reading Fire Insurance Company, Reading, Penn., . . September 18, 1902
Hamilton Fire Insurance Company, New York,. . . . February 19, 1904
Alexandria Fire Insurance Company, Alexandria, Va., . December 7, 1904
Mississippi Fire Association, Ebenezer, Miss., .... May i, 1906
Mississippi Home Insurance Company, Vicksburg, Miss., May i, 1908
Delaware Fire Insurance Company, Dover, Del., . . . February 2, 1909

[ H7 ]

XX

CONCLUSION

THE story of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company thus
brought down to the beginning of the company's second
century, an idea of the strength of the institution today is
best gathered from its One Hundredth Annual Exhibit — for Jan-
uary I, 1910 — as given on a later page. It may occur to some
that in theory leastwise the founders of 18 10 were rather ahead of
the times in their locality, and it is not incredible that along in the
'20's sundry dubious stockholders had that impression unpleasantly.
In the fact, however, that the management was properly ahead of
the times there surely was satisfaction for the company and solace
for others when such a calamity came as that of the New York
fire in 1835.

The "Old Hartford's" demonstration then, witnessed of all
men, was accepted as establishing the rule for all administrations
for all time. It was that, in order to be what it purported to be,
the company must keep far ahead of immediate obligations, that
it must study the future and that it must be prepared for whatever
emergencies may arise.

What that involves in the way of mentality, science, prescience,
skill and daily work can well be imagined but hardly can be de-
scribed within the limits of the company's history. From what
has been given of the process of building it is possible to form
conjecture of what is being done now. For the upbuilding ceases
not but gathers power and strength.

[ 148 ]

PACIFIC DEPARTMENT

WHITNEY PALACHE

General Agent

DIXWELL HEWITT

Cieneral Acent

TEXAS DEPARTMENT

J. B. HEREFORD

General Agent

THOMAS EGLESTON

General Agent

W. R. PRESCOTT

<i e n e ra I Agent

SOUTHERN DEPARTMENT

PRESIDENTS

Nathaniel Terry, 1810-1835

Eliphalet Terry, 1835- 1849

Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., 1849-1864

Timothy C. Allyn, 1864- 1 867

George L. Chase, 1867-1908

Charles E. Chase, IQ08-

HONORARY
VICE PRESIDENTS VICE PRESIDENTS

Hezekiah Huntington, Jr. Charles E. Chase, . . . 1903-1908

(temporary), 1836 Richard M. Bissell, . . 1903-

Charles Boswell, 1849 (Underwriting Man-
Albert Day, 1856-1857* ager, 1909-)

1867-1874 John W. G. Cofran, . . 1909-
James Goodwin, .... 1 874-1 877

Calvin Day, 1 878-1 884

Henry Keney, 1885

1887-1895
Jonathan B. Bunce, . . . 1895-1903

Walter Mitchell,
James G. BoUes,
Charles Taylor, .
A. F. Wilmarth, .
Caleb B. Bowers,
Timothy C. Allyn,
George M. Coit,
John D. Browne,
Charles B. Whiting,

SECRETARIES

1810-1835 Philander C. Royce, . . 1886-1907

1835-1851 Thomas Turnbull, . . 1908-1910

1851-1852 Frederick Samson (un-

1852-1853 derwriting dept.), . . 1910-

1853-1858 Sidney E. Locke (uii-

1858-1864 derwriting dept.), . . 1910-

1864-1870 Daniel J. Glazier (re-

1870-1880 cording), 1910-

1880-1886

ASSISTANT SECRETARIES

Christopher C. Lyman, . 1835-1878 Charles E. Chase, . . . 1894-1903
Philander C. Royce, . . 1881-1886 Frederick Samson, . . . 1908-1910
Thomas Turnbull, . . . 1886-1908 Sidney E. Locke, . . . . 1908-1910

* Acted as president during the winter while President Huntington was absent.

[ >5' ]

DIRECTORS*

Nathaniel Terry,

Nathaniel Patten,

David Watkinson,

1824-

Daniel Buck,

Thomas Glover,

Thomas K. Brace,

James H. Wells,

Ward Woodbridge,

Henry Hudson,

Spencer Whiting,

1820-

Elisha Colt,

1825-
1832-
1835-

Edward Watkinson,

Roswell Bartholomew

Eliphalet Terry,

John Russ,

Jesse Savage,

Thomas Day,

Seth Terry,

Thomas Chester,

Harvey Seymour,

1837

Edward P. Cook,

Anson G. Phelps,

Luther P. Sargeant,

Henry Shepard,

Isaac Thompson,

Fontienne Raphel,

Isaac D. Bull,

Hezekiah Huntington, Jr.,

Roswell B. Ward,

♦ Second column, date of election of successor,

[ 152]

810-1835

810-1831

810-1817

830

8.10-1818

810-1815

810-1817

810-1836

810-1817

810-1824

815-1816

823

816-1820

828

833
836

817-1829

817-1830

817-1849

818-1819

819-1820

820-1822

822-1835

823-1825

827-1835

838

828-1834

830-1834

830-1834

831-1832

833-1834
834-1835

834-1835
834-1865
834-1836

DIRECTORS— Continued

Samuel H. Huntington,

1843-

Albert Day,

Samuel Williams,

Frank J. Huntington,

Edwin D. Morgan,

1840-
Job Allyn,

1849-

George Putnam,

Junius S. Morgan,

1843

Henry Waterman,

Ezra White, Jr.,

John D. Russ,

James Goodwin, Jr.,

John P. Brace,

1852-

George C. Collins,

Charles Boswell,

Henry Keney,

William T. Lee,

Calvin Day,

Daniel Buck, Jr.,

1851

David F. Robinson,

Charles J. Russ,

Enoch C. Roberts,

Timothy C. Allyn,

Christopher C. Lyman,

George L. Chase,

Henry J. Johnson,

Jonathan B. Bunce,

E. B. Watkinson,

Olcott Allen,

John H. Goodwin,

1835-

84a

1848

1835-

874

1835-

837

1835-

836

1836-

837

I84I

1836-

843

1867

1836-

840

1836-

[841

1852

1837-

1838

1838-

1843

1838-

[840

1840-

[878

1841-

[846

1864

I84I-

[842

1842-

[885

1842-

'895

1846-

[847

1847-

[885

1848-

[849

1852

1849-

[851

1852-

1861

I86I-

[876

1864-

867

1865-

884

1867-

908

1867-

875

1868-

1868-

885

1869-1

870

1869-1

873

'53

DIRECTORS — Continued

H. W. Conklin, 1869-1881

G. Wells Root, 1873-1881

George Sexton, 1874-188 1

James J. Goodwin, 1878-

Jacob L. Greene, 1879-1905

Theodore Lyman, 1884-

George Roberts, 1884-

John C. Day, 1885-1900

William C. Skinner, 1885-

Meigs H. Whaples, 1893-

James M. Thomson, 1900-

Charles E. Chase, 1905-

RlCHARD M. BiSSELL, 1908-

[ 154

PREMIUMS BY DECADES

1810-1820 $ 46,586.45

1820-1830, 194,710.84

1830-1840, 939,824.41

1840-1850, 2,172,902.16

1850-1860, 4,546,534.87

1860-1870, 11,040,380.77

1870-1880, 18,253,205.95

1880-1890, 24,228,783.37

1890-1900, 52,864,743.48

1900-1910, 112,493,809.28

;^226,78i,48i.58

Total Losses, ;jSi32,992,588.44

Total Dividends, 14,420,329.00

Total Stock Dividends, 950,000 . 00

['55l

PROGRESS IN TEN YEARS

Dec.

Admitted

Surplus as to

Premiums

31st

Assets

Policyholders

1900

$ I l", 1 44,675

^4,798,180

$ 6,684,747

I90I

12,259,076

4,250,855

9.653,783

1902

13,419.588

4,407,181

9,621,469

1903

14,542,952

5.187,797

10,073,971

1904

15,632,483

5,276,249

11,876,983

1905

18,061,926

6,400,696

12,936,113

1906

19,054.843

4,819,909

13,981,228

1907

18,920,604

5,261,450

14.431.828

1908

20,434,817

7,061,592

14,071,456

1909

23.035.700

8,713.748

14,989,010

Average, ^11,894,477
Increase in 10 years, ^11,891,025 $3,915,568 ;?8,304,263

In ten years premiums, assets and premium income have con-
siderably more than doubled; surplus to policyholders has nearly
doubled. The average ratio of losses paid to premiums received
at the average ratio of losses incurred are identical, 58, including
1906 with 97 for both ratios.

[ 156]

Year

1835
1845

1848

1866

1871

1872

1874

1877
1880
1882
1885
1889
1900
I9OI
1902

Premiums for
the Year

iS!37'732
177,213
284,631
1,297,226
1,987,109
2,176,014
2,097,497

1875 1,892,496

1,628,998
1,607,929
2,064,649
2,312,587
2,831,352
6,684.747
9.653-783
9,621,469

1904 11,876,983

1906
1908

13,981,228
14,071.456

CONFLAGRATIONS

New York City, Dec. 16,
New York City, July 19,
Albany, N. Y., August 17
Portland, Maine, July 4,
Chicago, 111., Oct. 8, . .
Boston, Mass., Nov. 9, .
Chicago, 111., July 14, .
Oshkosh, Wis., April 28,
Virginia City, Nev., Oct. 26
St. John, N. B., June 20,
Baltimore, Md., Jan. 2,
Haverhill, Mass., Feb. 18
Galveston, Texas, Nov.,
Lynn, Mass., Nov. 26, .
Ottawa, Ont., April 26,
Jacksonville, Fla., May 3
Paterson, N. J., Feb. 9,
Baltimore, Md., Feb. 8,
Toronto, Ont., April 19, . .
San Francisco, Cal., April 18,
Chelsea, Mass.,

Cooflagration

Total

Losses

Losses for

the Year

^64,973

$75,000

69,691

136,751

57,673

210,391

151,288

961,468

1,933.562

3,006,510

485,315

1,658,314

43,121

1,017,983

41,640 '^
67.572 i

1,087,688

' / '

137,627

991,606

33,813

861,402

42,843

1,238,058

39,606

1,378,315

61,118

1,593,215

177.785

4,260,475

215,900

5,647,632

106,643

5,157,706

1,213,843 1
160,952 1

7,252,929

7,011,636

13,515,021

279,782

7,828,360

157

ONE HUNDREDTH ANNUAL EXHIBIT

JANUARY 1, 1910

Assets 1910

Cash on hand, in Bank, and Cash Items, ;?i, 161,030. 49
Cash in hands of Agents and in course of

Transmission, 2,645,448 . 50

Rents and Accrued Interest, 209,081.89

Real Estate Unincumbered, 897,500.00

Loans on Bond and Mortgage (ist lien), 395,166.67

Loans on Collateral Security, 13,000.00

Stocks and Bonds 17,714,473.06

Increase over
1909

Total Assets, ;j523,o35,7oo.6i $2,600,884.00

Liabilities

Capital Stock,

Reserve for Reinsurance, . . .
Reserve for Outstanding Losses,
Reserve for Taxes not yet due.

Net Surplus,

Surplus to Policyholders,

;?2,ooo,ooo.oo

12,742,135-49
1,379,817.62

200,000 . 00

6,713.747-50
8,713.747-50

;SS7i9,66i .62
211,067.26

1,652,155.12
1,652,155.12

[ 158]

GENERAL CHRONOLOGY

1 794. Jeremiah Wadsworth, Daniel Wadsworth, John Caldwell,
John Morgan and Peleg Sanford, as pioneers, associated
together (but were not incorporated) as the Hartford Fire
Insurance Company.

1798. Partnership ended but pioneers continued interested in
underwriting.

1 8 10. Some of these pioneers were among those who secured a
perpetual charter for the Hartford Fire Insurance Com-
pany; capital $150,000, cash paid in $15,000. Organized
June 27; Nathaniel Terry president, Walter Mitchell sec-
retary with salary of $300; office in Mitchell's law office
and $30 allowed him for a year's firewood. Hartford Bank
stock was the first investment. Jonathan G. W. Trumbull,
Norwich, Conn., was appointed agent December 27. No
losses were incurred the first year.

181 1. First agent outside of the state was appointed, Ebenezer F.
Norton, Canandaigua, N. Y. No commissions were paid,
but the agents were allowed the charge made for survey
and policy fee.

1816. Dividend of $4 was declared and instalment of $4 was
called for. Agents were allowed 50 cents on each policy
of over $1,000.

18 18. Gratuities were voted to Hartford firemen.

1819. Percentage was allowed to agents for commission.

1820. Wider expansion was undertaken.

1822. First instance in America of reinsurance was when the
Hartford reinsured the Ngw Haven, June 15, and gave a
bond equal to its capital.

1823. First salary to the president was voted — $100 semi-annual.
1827-29. Heavy losses.

[159]

1 829- First clerk was appointed, Lewis Bliss — salary, JK500.

1830. Capital was impaired.

1835. Eliphalet Terry was chosen president; James G. Bolles
appointed secretary. The office was moved from No. 26^
to No. 16 State street. Great fire in New York, December
16, called for 1^64,973.

1836-46. Large increase in business; agencies extended.

1845-49. Fires in New York, St. John's, N. F., Nantucket,
Albany and St. Louis called for ^324,577. 96.

1849. Hezekiah Huntington, Jr., succeeded Eliphalet Terry, re-
signed, as president.

1852. Western Department was established, at Columbus, O.

1853. Charter was amended, doubling the capital and increasing
par value from ^^50 to ^100.

Office was moved to Main street near Pratt.

1854
1857

1859

Capital was increased to $500,000 from profits in the treas-
ury; amendment permitted ;^i, 000,000.

Office was moved to building on Main street opposite the
old statehouse.

1 86 1. Western Department headquarters removed to Chicago.

1864. Capital was raised to $1, 000,000, by profits.

1865. Charter amendment adopted permitted $3,000,000 capital.
Timothy C. Allyn succeeded Mr. Huntington as president.

1865-66. Large fires in Augusta and Portland, Me., and Vicks-
burg, Miss., yet —

1866. Assets were increased by $200,000.

1867. George L. Chase succeeded Mr. Allyn as president.

1870. New building was occupied.

1871. Loss by the Chicago fire was $1,933,562. Capital was
reduced to $500,000 and immediately restored to $1,000,000,
rights selling at $80.

[ 160]

1872. Boston fire losses of $485,315 were paid out of current
receipts.

1877. Capital was increased to $1,250,000, by profits in the treasury.

1896-97. Home Office building was enlarged.

1900-02. Large fires in Ottawa, Ont., Jacksonville, Fla., and
Paterson, N. J., caused losses of $494,328.

1903. First formal vice presidents were chosen — Charles E. Chase
and Richard M. Bissell.

1904. Baltimore fire losses totaled $1,213,843.

1906. San Francisco's promptly settled losses amounted to $7,-
011,636. The capital was increased to $2,000,000. Home
OfSce building was again enlarged.

1908. President Chase died. Charles E. Chase was elected
president.

1909. Vice President Bissell was made underwriter manager.
John W. G. Cofran was chosen vice president.

1910. Centennial year.

[ 161 ]

hi .,

^ Ob

THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Santa Barbara

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW.

Series 9482

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